The Long Road Home
by Susan Hillwig
Summary: Jonah Hex and Hal Jordan: heroes to some, villains to others. They met once before in the past, but now their futures depend on them working together if they ever want to get home. This is a labor of love so PLEASE R&R!
1. Prologue & How Soon Is Now?

_**Dedicated to the memory of John Albano...don't worry, we'll keep an eye on Jonah fer yuh.**_

_**An Explanation:** Back in 1982, there was a two-part Justice League story where some of the Leaguers went back in time and teamed up with some of DC's Western heroes. On a whole, the story was not remarkable, but it did feature the unusual pairing of Hal Jordan and Jonah Hex. They took down some bad guys together and traded a few quips before Hal returned to the present, and the story became just another odd pre-Crisis tale, nothing Earth-shattering._

_Cut ahead to 1985: Sales on Jonah's book had been sinking for a few years. Whether due to pressure from the company to save the character or because writer Michael Fleisher honestly thought it was a good idea, Jonah was ripped out of the Old West and put in the middle of a post-nuclear nightmare, a la "Mad Max". Hex's book sales went up briefly, but after 18 issues, the series tanked, and the 15-year-long career of Jonah Hex came to a screeching halt. To add insult to injury, the last issue of Hex (titled "Thanksgiving") didn't even end with Jonah returning home, it just left him in a warehouse confronted with a very ugly fact that I'll elaborate on in the fic (don't want to ruin it for you!). DC has never retconned the whole "future Hex" incident, and virtually every appearance of the character since then has been in the Old West, where he belongs. But after nearly 20 years, they still refuse to explain how he got home (not to mention that, according to the storyline, we're all supposed to be nuked in 2045. That's not as far away as it used to be). Maybe I'm just nitpicky, but dammit, time travel isn't like catching a cross-town bus, it's usually pretty complicated, so how the Hell did it happen?_

_When I heard that Jonah Hex would be getting his own series again in 2005, I started thinking about that long-standing dilemma -- I really wanted to put a definite end on that chapter in Jonah's life, even if it's unofficial. Just how to do it was eluding me, though: it'd have to be in a way that wouldn't contradict what's been established in continuity. While in the midst of turning the problem over in my head, I started reading Green Lantern: Rebirth, and it reminded me of that old Justice League story. Suddenly, the answer smacked me in the face. So as Rebirth finished up, I dug through old comics and began writing a story that couldn't have been done 20 years ago. For those of you reading this that don't know Jonah all that well, don't fret none, everything you need to know is in the story. Plus Hal's got a good deal of "screen time" in this, so he'll get you through._

_**Disclaimer:** All characters in this story are owned by DC Comics, except for the couple I made up, but they can have 'em for free if they publish this for me. Portions of this story contain dialogue originally appearing in Jonah Hex #92, Hex #18, Green Lantern: Rebirth #6, and Justice League of America #198 & 199._

_**Continuity:** From Jonah's point of view, this takes place a month after Hex #18. For Hal and the rest of us, this happens between Green Lantern: Rebirth #6 and Green Lantern (vol. 4) #1._

**THE LONG ROAD HOME: PROLOGUE**

_Lord, don't make me go through this again…_

He was back in the Red Dog Saloon like a day hadn't gone by. He could smell sawdust and cheap whiskey, the sweat of tired cowhands and the fancy perfumes of soiled doves. The clink of glasses behind the bar reached his ears, as did the clatter of poker chips being tossed onto a table. The first time he was there, he'd barely noticed these things, but now they stood out like signposts in the middle of the desert, marking the way to places long gone. The comfort of familiar surroundings was overshadowed by the pain their loss gave him, but even that pain was nothing compared to how the sight before him made him feel.

Jonah Hex stood at the bar staring at himself…his _old _self, dressed in Confederate gray and none the wiser that his life was going to be thrown ass-over-teakettle in less than five minutes. _It don't have tuh be, though. All's yuh got tuh do is move, _he tried to tell his other self, but the words wouldn't come out. _Just take maybe three steps tuh the right, an' it might miss yuh._

Old Jonah paid no heed to the silent advice, choosing instead to pick up the bottle on the bar and pour himself another shot. He looked lost in thought, probably wondering what he was going to spend his newly-acquired bounty money on. Five thousand dollars wasn't a bad haul for barely one day's work.

_It ain't gonna be worth one red cent if'n yuh don't move, yuh empty-headed fool!_ He reached out to grab a handful of his old, Rebel-gray coat, but it did no good: He passed right through it like it was of those fancy "hollergraphs" that gave him a headache to look at. Again, the other Jonah didn't notice, just knocked back his whiskey and commenced to pouring another glass. _Dammit, whut's wrong with yuh?_ he wanted to scream._ Do yuh want all this tuh disappear? Don't yuh care anymore?_

"Jonah!"

In unison, they both turned their heads toward the saloon door at the sound of their name, the same word coming to both their lips, though only one of them could be heard: "Emmy?"

"Jonah, thank Heaven I found you!" Emmylou Hartley ran into the old Jonah's arms, burying her face in his chest. Like everyone else in the saloon, she didn't see the man standing barely two feet from her, dressed in clothes that had no Earthly reason for existing in 1875. He wanted desperately to be seen, though, to be heard. _He_ wanted to be holding Emmy in his arms, not watching his ghost do it for him. How long had it been since he'd seen her? Six months? A year? A thousand years? He didn't know anymore, the days of his life had become a blur. He wasn't even sure if the feelings he still held for her were from love or loneliness, he just knew that where _she_ was held more appeal to him than where he'd been hanging his hat as of late.

"Ah'm glad yuh had better luck than me, sugar," the old Jonah told her, cupping her chin in his hand and tilting her face up towards his. Even clad in a heavy rancher's coat and spattered with mud like she was, Emmylou was still a pretty young thing. "Ah've been lookin' high an' low fer yuh, an' y'all bustin' in the door like thet is the best lead Ah've had in months."

"He's after me, Jonah!" Emmy went on, as if he'd said nothing at all. "He's…"

The batwing doors of the saloon banged open once again, cutting her off mid-sentence. "That's right, you pigtailed tramp, I _am_ after you!" bellowed the grizzled man that stepped in, pulling leather as he did so. "And this time, there's no place for you to run to!"

_Shoot him now,_ Jonah tried to tell his other self, _just shoot him, grab Emmy, an' get the Hell outta this place!_ It didn't make a bit of difference: same as the first time, the old Jonah thought he had the situation under control. Sure, he was certain this was the same man he'd seen robbing the local assayer's office (and forcing Emmy to help him…she _couldn't _be helping of her own free will), but there hadn't been a man born that could outshoot Jonah. His father always said Jonah was the fastest Hex…but he also said that his son wasn't the _smartest_ Hex.

"Look here, mister, Ah don't rightly know just whut yer beef is," he said, leaning back against the bar, "but if'n yo're bound an' determined tuh keep wavin' thet gun around, Ah recommend yuh come back here when Ah'm in a more forgivin' mood."

"To Hell with that!" The man cocked his pistol. I'm gonna kill that woman...and if I've gotta kill you first to do it, then that's exactly what I'm gonna do!"

Patrons began to dive under tables and head for the door. More than a few knew what Jonah Hex was capable of when riled, and didn't want to be in the way when the bullets started flying.

"Don't, Brett...please!" Emmy sobbed, and made to grab the old Jonah by the arm. He shook her off and began to take a step forward, the cold killer's look coming to light in his eyes. "All right, partner," he said, "if bein' dead's the only thing's gonna make yuh happy..."

_Fer God's sake, don't let it happen again!_ Jonah leapt forward, trying in vain to push his other self out of the way, but it was too late. A strange red light materialized out of nowhere, striking the old Jonah square in the chest. He staggered backward a step as if he'd been shot, but the light didn't let him get far. It quickly engulfed him from the top of his Confederate officer's hat to the tips of his traildust-encrusted boots. Emmylou backed away, screaming, "Oh my God! What's happening to him?"

Suddenly, the red light pulsed outward. The old Jonah had disappeared, carried away to a time and place that, even now, he could barely fathom. The light remained, however, obliterating everyone and everything in its path: the bar warped and caved in on itself, all the bottles and glasses behind it exploded like clay targets in a shooting gallery, the remaining patrons blew away one tattered shred at a time, and Emmy...she melted like a beeswax statue tossed in a furnace, her cornsilk hair turning black as the poor girl twisted in the wake of the red light's destructive wave. Only Jonah Hex remained unscathed as the light exhausted itself, sweeping away any trace of his old life. It left him nothing, not even shrapnel or ash, just a stark black plain. He stood there with his eyes squeezed shut, hands balled into fists, his tall frame shaking from anger and frustration. He'd failed...no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop it.

"Yuh cain't change the past, boy," a voice said. "Just let it go."

"No, there has tuh be a way. Ah'll find a way back someday. Ah'll stop it afore it even happens, Ah kin..."

"Do yuh really think yuh kin change this?" The speaker was close to Jonah's face, the smell of formaldehyde wafting out with every word. "The past, the future...it's all been set in stone. Yuh cain't erase it, no matter how much yuh may want tuh. Face it, boy: yuh may be alive right now, but yuh've been dead a long, long time."

"No, Ah ain't dead...Ah ain't dead..."

"If'n yuh ain't dead, then whut the Hell am Ah?"

"...don't want tuh die like thet..."

Bony fingers dug into Jonah's arms. _"Look at me, boy!"_

Jonah's eyes snapped open and faced the glassy stare of his own corpse, the leathery, preserved skin coated with layers of paint to give the illusion of life, but succeeding only in making the image more grotesque. The corpse's attire was just as bizarre as its visage: a white, spangled outfit more befitting a rodeo rider than one of the most feared and respected bounty hunters of the West. The fact that it was draped over such a gangly, desiccated body made the sight on a whole fall somewhere between laughable and horrific. "Don't fret too much 'bout it," the corpse told Jonah, smiling as well as its partly stitched-together lips would allow, "we all got tuh die sometime...even black-hearted sonovabitches like yerself." It let out a dry, barking laugh. "At least somebody found a good use fer yuh in the end!"

"Ah won't end up like yuh!" Jonah roared, then reached up and started to claw at the corpse's face. His fingers pierced the flesh like it was made of tissue paper, spilling out wads of cotton and clumps of sawdust. The glass eyes popped out and rolled away into the black, as did the corpse's white ten-gallon hat. It kept laughing at Jonah as he squirmed in its grip, his hands ripping out tufts of silvery hair. He screamed at the mocking skull, but his words had long since become inarticulate, the sounds coming from his throat more akin to sobbing.

The corpse tossed him to the ground, saying, "There ain't no use in denyin' it. It's already happened, an' it'll happen again." It spread its arms wide, gesturing to the wasteland around them. "Yo're always gonna end up right back here."

Jonah shook his head. "No, Ah know whut's gonna happen now, Ah kin stop it afore..."

"Yuh don't know a damn thing. Yuh don't even know how yuh got these back." The corpse's gloved hands dipped down and unholstered Jonah's old guns: ivory-handled Colt .44 Dragoons, lost long before he arrived in this godforsaken place. It pointed them at Jonah and thumbed back the hammers, telling him, "Yuh ain't never gonna know thet the end's come 'til it's too late tuh do anything 'bout it." Then the guns went off like a crack of thunder. Jonah raised his hands as if to ward off the bullets, but it was a futile gesture: one slug tore through his chest, bursting his heart, the other piercing him neatly between the eyes and blowing out the back of his head. Blood and gray matter sprayed everywhere as he fell back, the corpse still laughing while Jonah's body tumbled into the black with no end in sight...not until he'd fallen all the way to Hell...

In the darkness of his room, Jonah Hex sat up in bed, barely managing to bite back the scream before it had fully left his mouth. His sweat-slick body trembled as he tried to push away from his mind the last clinging remnants of the nightmare. "Ah ain't dead," he whispered, the phrase having become almost a mantra for him over the past month, "Ah ain't dead...Ah ain't dead..." As he sat there, elbows resting on his knees and hands buried deep in his red hair, he wondered (not for the first time) if a man could die from lack of sleep.

Once he felt more in control of himself, Jonah reached down and fumbled around for the wrist-chrono Stiletta had given him. He hated wearing the thing, and tended to leave it lying on the floor near the bed. When he located it, he pressed the tiny button to illuminate the watch face, read the time, then threw it across the room with a curse. Three hours. He had to get up in three damn hours to play watchdog. "No way in Hell Ah'm gonna be ready," he muttered, "haven't slept more'n twenty minutes at a shot." He knew of a solution, though he also knew that he'd been depending on it a bit too heavily as of late. He didn't have a problem yet, no sir, he was a long way from that. His father had a problem, but not Jonah, he was still in control, he'd stop as soon as the nightmares stopped.

He reached down again, this time groping under the bed until he found the bottle wrapped discreetly in one of his shirts. The guy that had sold it to him called it everclear, but to Jonah, it was just high-quality moonshine. _Bet if'n yuh proofed this stuff, the flame would be a brighter blue than on the Stars an' Bars,_ he thought as he took a long pull off the bottle, draining a quarter of it without pause. He leaned back in bed, coughing a little from the alcohol fumes. _Ain't drinkin' tuh get drunk,_ he told himself, _it's just tuh help me relax, get some sleep, thet's all._ He took another swig, then another, not even taking note of how much of the stuff he was pouring down his throat.

By the time the bottle slipped out of his fingers and clattered to the floor, Jonah had fallen into an alcohol-fueled stupor so deep the shrill beeping of the chrono's alarm three hours later almost didn't pierce it.

**1: HOW SOON IS NOW?**

He was a hero to some, a villain to others...and Hal Jordan wondered just how long it would take for him to sway the opinion of the latter.

_Be patient,_ he told himself as he hung in orbit above the Earth, a hazy green nimbus the only thing protecting him from the cold, crushing void of space. _It hasn't even been two days yet. It's going to take time...for you and them._ But Hal didn't want to wait, he wanted his old life back, or at least as much as he could salvage.

He'd taken a few small steps in that direction, contacting old friends of the "civilian" variety. For those that didn't know of Hal's double life, some half-hearted explanations had to be made, of course, but most were just glad to find out he was alive, and were happy to have him back in their lives. Ollie had been lending a hand as well, letting Hal crash at his home in Star City and just being there for moral support ("Us dead heroes have to stick together," his long-time friend joked). And, of course, there was the Corps. After finally being freed of Parallax, they'd accepted him back into the fold, no questions asked. That had been the biggest morale-booster for Hal since he'd come back: being able to bear the symbol of Green Lantern once again. They didn't have to take him back, not after Parallax had used Hal to dismantle the Corps, but they did...and it felt like he'd never left.

When Kyle asked him to come to Oa and reacquaint himself with the new Guardians, however, Hal declined. "Let me think about it," he said, "I want to get things in order down here before I start thinking of up there." At the moment, zipping across the galaxy seemed to him like running away, a perfect excuse to ignore the fact that many of his colleagues, people he'd fought alongside for years, didn't trust him. Few of them had said anything outright, but he could feel the tension when he ran into them, like his life had become an old-time movie serial, and Hal was the shifty-eyed stranger that had just rode into town.

Batman had been the most blunt about it so far: "Do you expect me to believe this? That you were influenced? Possessed?" Bruce said it in such a tone that it sounded like he was calling Hal a bald-faced liar without actually doing such. To a small degree, he could forgive the man's lack of tact: it was Bruce's way to constantly play devil's advocate for the Justice League, cracking open silver linings to root out the clouds.

"I don't expect you to believe anything," Hal had answered, "and quite honestly, I don't care." But that wasn't completely true: deep down, it worried him that, for the rest of his life, the shadow of Parallax would eclipse the light he so desperately wanted to carry through the universe once again. He wished he could make everyone forget he'd fallen from grace, just snap his fingers and wipe out the whole incident. The irony was, if he'd still been possessed by Parallax, he could have done just that. But that creature was out of his soul now, imprisoned once again in the Central Battery on Oa, so instead he pushed himself harder than he'd ever done the first time he bore the ring, doing his best to show them all that, despite the past, he could be a hero once again.

That was what brought Hal Jordan to his current vantage point: with the ring, he could scan the Earth for any signs of trouble. The fact that his position also placed him square between the planet and the JLA's base on the moon wasn't lost on him. Hal supposed that, unconsciously, he'd chosen the spot as a way to send a message to anyone in the Watchtower who doubted the Green Lantern's intentions: _I'm standing out on the front lines while you're hiding away in a fortress. Who's got the best interests of the world in mind here?_ Had it been Guy standing there instead of Hal, his fellow GL probably would have flipped the bird at the Watchtower's long-range sensors for good measure. But Hal wasn't interested in picking fights, he just wanted to do his job, and do it well.

"That's all I've ever wanted to do," he said aloud, gazing down upon the Earth far beneath his feet. Nighttime was beginning to cover the West Coast, the entire North American continent sparkling with clusters of light. Out of habit, his eyes traveled up the Pacific coastline, searching for a specific pattern of lights that wasn't there anymore. _Stop torturing yourself,_ he thought, and placed a white-gloved hand over his eyes for a moment. _How do you expect others to forgive you if you can't forgive yourself? _It was the one old wound he feared would never heal properly: the loss of Coast City had been the beginning of the end for him, and it was the one piece of his old life that he could never retrieve. There had been some rumblings made by the government recently about rebuilding, but it wouldn't be the same. You could replace the buildings, but not the people.

With a sigh, Hal let his hand drop away from his eyes, glad that no one was there to see him at such a low moment. The way he felt, he was sure his mask wouldn't be able to hide his emotions. He then remembered that was why John stopped wearing his: to show people he had nothing to hide. "Sorry, friend, guess you're a little braver than me in that department," Hal muttered as he looked back down at California. This time, however, his eyes were drawn further south, towards San Diego. Something about the light radiating from there didn't look right. After a moment, he saw the discrepancy: they were dimming.

Having spent nearly his entire life on the West Coast, Hal was familiar with rolling blackouts, but this wasn't the same. The darkness was spreading out in a circular pattern like a blast radius, instead of following the layout of the power blocks. It moved slowly as well, almost imperceptible at first, but it appeared to be building speed. Bringing his right hand up, Hal said, "Ring, analysis."

At a glance, the ring Hal wore on his middle finger looked like an unusual class ring, perhaps one given out by a quirky fraternity. In a way, it was: the members had once stood 3,600 strong, but now only five belonged. No other frat, however, could boast of being in possession of one of the most powerful weapons in the universe. With two simple words, the ring scanned the phenomenon, processed the collected data, and delivered a response in the space of a heartbeat: _"Rapid drain of city's power supply in progress. Energy being redirected to location at epicenter of disturbance." _

"Where's that?"

_"STAR Labs."_

_Not good,_ Hal thought, then said aloud, "Ring, power check."

The ring paused a moment to assess its current charge, then replied, _"Power levels at 98.71 percent."_

"Once more unto the breach," Hal said to himself, then plunged into Earth's atmosphere like a falling star.

* * *

For years, STAR Labs had been the worldwide leader in independent scientific research, with over a dozen facilities dotting the world. Unfortunately, their research sometimes made them a magnet for trouble. STAR's San Diego location was no different, having recently been rocked by an earthquake that submerged a portion of the city, but the building had withstood any heavy damage, and they continued to carry on with their business. As to what sort of calamity could have befallen them now, Hal didn't have a clue, but he intended to find out.

Once he was close enough to get a good view of the streets below, Hal leveled out of his descent and skimmed over the buildings, his emerald wake the only illumination. People were leaning out of windows or standing in the streets, looking to each other for an explanation as to what was going on. As he streaked by, he heard a few shout his name...or rather, he heard them shout for Green Lantern. Either way, he was glad to be recognized.

The closer he got to the lab, the more chaotic things became. Cars were locked in a near-standstill for blocks, and crowds had begun to grow behind barricades erected just outside of STAR by the police. Uniformed officers mingled with white lab coats in the eerie shadows cast by the red-and-blue flashers on the cop cars. The STAR Labs facility itself, a twenty-story structure of sleek glass and steel, was just as black as all the other buildings in the area. Hal touched down near the front entrance, where a wiry-looking tech was gesturing wildly at a sergeant. "Anything I can do to help?" he asked them.

"Oh, thank God, somebody that might listen to reason," the tech said, then grabbed Hal's hand and started shaking it so vigorously, one might have thought he was running for office. "Dr. William Steveling, head of the Propulsions Lab. You've got to convince these folks to shut down the power."

"Looks like you've beat me to it."

The man's wide eyes got a little wider. "Huh? Oh, no...no, trust me, the power's still flowing, it's just all going to the same place." He waved a hand at the building.

"That's what my ring said, but I..."

"There's no time to explain it," Steveling interrupted, "just switch off the grid!"

The sergeant piped in with, "And I keep telling you, we can't turn off the whole city! We have enough problems with the power in this state without trying to cut off all the juice at once. It could crash the whole system...assuming I could even authorize it."

The tech let go of Hal's hand and turned to the cop. "You'd better try, or else we could lose a lot more than a few paltry circuit-breakers!"

"All right, quit it!" Twin beams of green light shot out from Hal's ring and pushed the two men apart. He then looked at Steveling and said, "If you want my help, you'll have to tell me what exactly is going on. I can't operate in the dark...pardon the pun."

"There isn't time..." he started to say, then saw the look on the Green Lantern's face. "...but I guess I'll have to make time. Have you ever heard of a Casimir engine?" Before Hal could say one way or the other, Steveling told him, "It's a theoretical device that can extract energy from a cosmic source known as an electromagnetic quantum vacuum. This is an energy field that exists everywhere in the universe in equal, level amounts, virtually undetectable. If one could find a way to tap into it, you would have an unlimited, inexhaustible power source, capable of propelling spaceships from one end of the universe to the other, no solid fuel necessary. Just turn on the engines, let them draw in the energy, and let it go. Not to mention what we could do with something like that here on..."

The Green Lantern held up a hand. "Let me guess: you managed to build one of these engines."

"Just a small one. We even managed to get around the problem of cycling the energy-extraction process. Without that, the engine would only be good for one use. The only problem is...we can't get it to stop."

"You mean you can't turn it off?"

"Well, technically, it hasn't even turned _on_ yet, not fully. It's still in the energy-collecting stage."

It was becoming clear now. "So this thing..."

Steveling nodded. "When we tried to switch over the engine to test-fire it, something shorted out. It began to draw on the building's power through the hookups for the monitoring equipment. We tried to shut down the circuit breakers here, but those failed as well. It's drinking the city dry, and I'm not sure how much more power that engine can hold before..." He splayed out his fingers, mimicking an explosion.

Hal glanced over at the barricades a scant half-block away. "How big a potential explosion are we talking?" He asked the tech. "Just the building, a few blocks...?"

"I don't know. At least a few blocks, probably. Possibly a few miles...especially if the engine is still getting any feed from the quantum vacuum. There could be a backlash through the entire field, flattening everything in its path. It'd be like lighting a match in a gas-filled room."

For a moment, Hal felt numb. Another city, another disaster, countless more lives wiped out in a blink...but this time he was here, not on the other side of the universe. His gloved hands tightened into fists. "Sergeant, I need you to start evacuating every building in the vicinity," he said, "and keep going until there's no one within a five-mile radius of this place. I don't care if you have to drive them through the streets like cattle, just get them the Hell away from here." The policeman began to say something, possibly an objection to being ordered around, but Hal cut him off with, "Do it, or I'll hold you personally accountable for any lives lost tonight."

He nodded, then rushed over to a squad car and got on the radio. Hal turned his attention back to Dr. Steveling, saying, "Is everyone out of the building already?"

"Cleared them out first thing. Luckily, most everyone had gone home for the night."

"Good. Now what floor is this thing on?"

"Fifteenth, Main Propulsion Lab."

Hal's eyes scanned the front of STAR Labs, counting floors, then he raised the hand bearing the ring. Emerald fire danced across the symbol carved upon it. "Not again," he said under his breath, "never again." With just a thought, he launched himself upwards until he reached the right level, then used his ring to make a portal into the building. At the same time, he ordered his ring to send out an emergency signal to the other Lanterns, relaying the pertinent information along with it. He wasn't sure if any of them would get the message in time, but he had to try.

Once inside, Hal was confronted with a steady, high-pitched whine that reverberated through the dark hallway he was standing in. He could feel a thrum running through the floor and up his legs as well. Jordan flew down the hall, following the directory plates on the walls to the main lab. The signs became unnecessary the closer he got to the lab. The doors stood open, and a bright white light poured out into the hall. The protective aura around Hal darkened slightly so it wouldn't blind him as he entered the room.

In the center of the high-ceilinged room sat Dr. Steveling's "small" engine. Eight feet tall, twelve feet wide, and nearly was deep, it was flanked on either side by monitors and diagnostic equipment. Hal could see where someone had attempted to disconnect the machines from the engine in an effort to stop the energy drain, but obviously they had fled the lab before they could finish the task, and with good reason: along with the intense light being thrown off through the exhaust ports, the engine was producing erratic sparks of energy, arcing off the surface and burning whatever it touched.

_We'll need to stop that first,_ Hal thought, and projected an energy shield around the device. That seemed to exacerbate the sparking, but at least it was now contained. He then began to slice through the remaining connections, lifting the engine out of the cradle it rested in as he did so. _I'm going to have to cut open the walls to get this thing out of here, let it explode in orbit and hope that's..._

Suddenly, Hal felt something tug on his arm. The engine dipped, but he managed to keep it in the air. "What the Hell..." he began to say, then felt another tug. He then realized the tugging was centered on his ring...and that the light pouring from the engine was taking on a greenish cast.

The Casimir engine had found a new power source.

_Oh damn. _"Got to get rid of this," Hal said as he fought to keep control over the ring. Cracks were beginning to form on the engine casing, and the whine was getting higher in pitch. He tried to summon the energy to punch through the lab wall, but the ring wouldn't obey. He'd have to fall back, switch off the beam and evacuate, lest the device bleed him dry. "No...no, I can't do that," he gasped. Hal forced every ounce of his will into the ring, strengthening the shield so as to contain the imminent blast. His arm ached from the effort it took to keep the ring's energy concentrated on the task, and he clamped his left hand over his right wrist to steady it. "If I've got to die again...to save others...then dammit, I'll die again!"

Seconds later, the engine discharged, the unleashed power shattering the shield and engulfing Hal in an emerald firestorm.


	2. It's a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood

**2: IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD**

For a moment, Hal wasn't sure which way was up: the wave of energy had knocked him backward, but it seemed to be taking forever for him to land. When he did, he heard the crunch of glass breaking and the hollow thump of metal beneath him. _Hit a car, _he thought as he lay there, eyes closed. _Must have blown me clear out of the building._ His back throbbed from the impact. Of all the things he'd missed during his hiatus from mortal life, that chew-up-five-aspirins, post-battle ache was certainly not one of them. He wasn't sure if he should try moving, but since no one appeared to be coming over to lend a hand, he didn't have much choice. In fact, his surroundings seemed eerily quiet: no shouts, no sirens, just a snapping sound like a flag in a high wind. He opened his eyes, white spots swimming in his vision. Once he'd rubbed them clear (no easy feat when wearing an eyemask), he lifted his head to take a look around, and soon saw why it was so quiet.

He'd landed on a car, but it wasn't in the street: he'd been blown into a parking garage. Hal couldn't recall seeing any nearby when he'd arrived on the scene, but he hadn't really been focusing on the other buildings around STAR at the time. He also saw that power has been restored, but the lights within the garage were a bit low, and stuttered from time to time. With a groan, he propped himself up on his elbows. He was sprawled out on the hood of the car, head pointed towards the front grille and heels propped up on the roof. _Good thing most newer vehicles don't have three-dimensional hood ornaments,_ he thought as he rolled off the car,_ it would have impaled the back of my head._ As it was, his head didn't feel like it was in the greatest shape. _Might have a concussion...that was one Hell of a blast._ Hal leaned against the car and held his ring up to chest level. "Ring, physical status," he said.

Nothing happened.

"Physical status," he repeated, a little louder this time. When there was still no response, he looked down at the ring. To the untrained eye, it looked no different, but Hal could see that the emblem was dull, a much darker green than the band. He cursed under his breath. Just as he feared, the engine had drained all of his ring's power. Even the emergency charge and the distress beacon had been bled dry. He didn't even have enough juice to summon his battery for a recharge. _I don't believe this. I just got the ring back, and I'm already grounded. _He rubbed his sore neck and began to cast his gaze around the dimly-lit garage, searching for the stairs.

That was when he spotted the Casimir engine, charred but intact, leaning like a drunk against a truck about thirty feet away. Nearby was a good portion of one of the lab's walls and various other bits of equipment, some whole, others neatly sliced as if with a laser. He also located the source of the snapping noise he'd heard earlier: someone had tried to cover the naturally-open walls of the parking garage with sheets of plastic tarp. The corner of one had slipped loose from its moorings and was now flapping back and forth as the wind gusted through the opening, carrying flurries of snow with it.

_Either San Diego is having some unseasonably cold weather,_ Jordan said to himself, _or I got tossed a lot further than I thought._ He took a few steps toward the opening, hoping to get a good look outside and get his bearings, but stopped when he heard voices coming up the ramp leading to his level of the garage. Deciding it would be a good idea to hang back until he knew who these folks were, he ducked behind the car, out of sight from the ramp. Unfortunately, the angle of the ramp meant that they'd see the engine and other debris when they reached the top. _Not much I can do about that,_ Hal thought as he peered around the car's rear fender, waiting for whomever to come into view.

Two men emerged from the lower level, both armed and dressed in outfits similar to those worn by professional motorcyclists: leather (or leather-like) jumpsuits, form-fitting and heavily padded at key points. They each had the word SLABBERZ and the outline of a coffin on the back of their jackets in garish red paint, but beyond that, they were like night and day. The shorter of the two had a shaved head covered in thorny tribal tattoos, and enough chains and studs attached to his jumpsuit to give metal detector a seizure. His companion was a bit more subtle: aside from random-looking swipes of color on his sleeves and down his pantlegs, his only outstanding feature was an old-style leather aviator helmet, complete with goggles, which he pulled up when he caught sight of the engine. "Holy...lookit this," the wannabe flyboy said. "All that noise, figured the roof finally caved in, not..." He gestured at the device. "What the Hell is it?"

"Dunno. How'd it get in here is what I wanna know," the bald one said.

_That's what I'm wondering,_ Hal thought. Except for the loose flap of plastic and the ramp, the entire level of the garage was sealed up, with no way in or out large enough for the engine to have come through. He did have a theory, but as long as he was stuck in this building, he wouldn't know for sure.

Flyboy stepped around the engine and approached the section of lab wall behind. "Kind of weird, all this stuff poppin' up out of nowhere." He ran a hand along the wall, which wasn't the brightest idea. With most of the support structure gone, the only thing holding it upright was good intentions, and the slight pressure of Flyboy's fingertips sent the whole thing tumbling down onto the vehicles behind it. A great cloud of plaster dust rose up, engulfing Flyboy and causing him to stumble backward in an effort to get away from it. Baldy started laughing at him until Flyboy ran straight into the engine, shifting it enough to make it slide it off the truck.

Hal scrambled out from his hiding place and tried to put as much distance between himself and the two stooges as possible. He didn't know how much energy the device might have still held, and he certainly didn't want to be near it if it blew up. Luckily for all concerned, nothing happened, save for some of the charred outer housing cracking off when it hit the concrete floor. "You stupid fugger!" Baldy yelled. "You broke the thing!"

Coughing, Flyboy said, "It was an accident! Besides, you don't even know what the damn thing..." He stopped as he caught a glimpse of the Green Lantern slipping behind a row of cars. "Hey, you! Get out here!" he shouted and brought up the rifle slung over his shoulder.

_Dammit,_ Hal thought, his back pressed against a vehicle. Most of the cars in the garage were familiar to some degree or another, but the sporty little number he was currently crouched behind had a body styling he'd never seen before, all impossibly-smooth curves and no discernible seams between the windows and frame. From this new hiding place, he could see a door marked STAIRS - LVL 3 not too far away. He could try and make a break for it, but without the ring's protection, he'd be risking a bullet in the back. _Have to try a different approach. _Slowly, he stood up and stepped out into the clear, hands dangling at his sides and turned palms-forward.

Both of the men stood less than ten feet away, guns raised. Flyboy was carrying what looked like a high-powered hunting rifle, but Baldy's gun was more akin to a next-generation military weapon. The only thing on the two-foot long, boxy object that distinguished it as being a firearm was the trigger and stubby muzzle. "What the fug are you supposed to be?" Baldy asked, gesturing with the gun.

Hal was taken aback for a moment. This was a drastic change from the greetings he'd gotten earlier. "I'm Green Lantern," he told them.

Flyboy laughed. "You're a green _something_, that's for sure."

"Shut it," Baldy snapped at him. "That your junk back there, Greenie?"

"Not exactly," Hal said.

"Then you don't got no problem with us keepin' it?"

"Depends. You tell me where I am, and I'll tell you if there's a problem."

"You're in the middle of Slabberz territory," Flyboy said, "and that, in itself, is a problem. For you, anyhow." He nodded his head in the direction of the ramp. "Come along quiet, and maybe your problem won't get too big for you to handle."

"Fine." Hal lowered his head, brought his hands up to shoulder level, and began to walk forward. When he reached the two men, they parted enough to let him pass. Unfortunately for them, Hal Jordan had no intention of going quietly: he clamped his upraised hands onto their shoulders, pushed himself upward, then slammed his bootheels into their knees. They both went down howling, Baldy clutching his right knee, Flyboy his left. Hal snatched up their guns and ran for the stairwell, tossing the guns as far as he could before banging the door open. He vaulted the rail in the narrow, windowless stairwell, going from the third to the second floor of the garage in one fell swoop, then ran over to the 2nd-level door. The handle was gone, but he tried to force it open anyways. It refused to budge.

"Green..." a voice behind him muttered, "green angels...falling from Heaven..."

Hal whipped his head around. It was even darker in the stairwell than it had been in the garage proper, and Jordan hadn't seen the man sitting in the corner as he ran past. Like the two upstairs, this man wore a leathery jumpsuit, though he didn't look like any sort of threat compared to them. Cradled in his arms was an old coffee can, from which a thick, reddish-pink smoke was billowing. "Don't go...don't go through there, angel...that way lies Purgatory..."

"I've been in Purgatory," Hal told him. "Trust me, it doesn't look like a parking garage."

"Fly, angel...fly back to Heaven!" The man waved a hand upwards, stirring up the smoke. A smell like burnt sugar coated the back of Hal's throat, making him gag.

Suddenly, the 3rd-level door banged open. "Damn near broke my leg, you green _sumbitch!_" Flyboy bellowed.

"Gotta go," Hal said to the smoky man, then bolted down the stair, the man's singsong voice following him: "Green...means go...go to Hell..."

As he reached the ground floor, he found more people sitting in the stairwell. There was more of that strange smoke as well, so thick that it refused to dissipate as he rushed by. "Jolly Green Giant!" a woman called out, giggling and pointing, her upper torso clad in nothing but strategically-placed vinyl strips. The door to the garage was open, but clogged with people who merely stared through Hal as he approached, dreamy smiles on their faces.

_The smoke, it's some sort of drug,_ he thought...and it was a difficult though to have: his head was beginning to feel fuzzy, objects in his vision were looking runny. _If I don't get a breath of fresh air soon, I'll be just as dopey as them._ He did his best to tighten his mental focus, then began to push his way through the throng until he made it out of the stairwell.

The main level of the garage wasn't much better than the stairs: the smoke was more isolated, coming from only a few metal barrels scattered here and there, but the amount of people increased tenfold...and not all of them appeared to be in their own personal dreamland. Some were already looking in Green Lantern's direction in a way that didn't strike him as friendly, and things certainly didn't improve after Flyboy busted through the drug-addled crowd, yelling, "Outta the way, briq-heads!" He had a pistol in his hand, and took a pot-shot at Hal the second he saw him. Luckily for Hal, it went wild, but the echo of the gunshot caused others to pull out weapons, and none of them appeared to be of a mind to ask whether or not their visitor was similarly equipped. _Well, this is turning out to be another typical day on the job,_ Hal thought, then turned and beat a hasty retreat towards what looked like the exit, bullets nipping at his heels.

Unlike the third level, the open walls on the ground floor had been closed off in a sturdier fashion: a combination of patches of sheet metal, crumbling cinderblocks, and stacks of stripped vehicles lined the interior walls, leaving only the original entrance clear. A collection of massive ATVs and viciously-armored motorcycles stood nearby. Hal considered grabbing one, but he didn't want to waste time trying to start it, choosing instead to run out of the parking garage and into the snow-covered street. The buildings surrounding the garage provided him no clue as to where he was, other than the place was suffering from what most city governments termed "urban blight": shells of cars lay half-buried under snowdrifts, windows even in the tallest of high-rises (at least the ones still standing ) were shattered, and as far as Jordan could tell in the gray daylight, not a soul could be seen for blocks. He tried to step only where the snow had been churned up by tire tracks to avoid leaving a trail, but that would only help him for a short while. Until he could find a place to hide and assess the situation further, he was a black-and-green moving target on a white field.

He could hear people shouting behind him and the whine of engines revving to life. _Better get under cover quick,_ Hal thought, sprinting through the blowing snow for another block before ducking into an open doorway and crouching down amongst shards of glass beneath the blown-out front window. The building was out of the garage's line of sight, so unless the gangbangers had the foresight to drive slow and pick out his footprints, they shouldn't be able to figure out where he went right off. For the next few minutes, all Hal could hear was the echo of shouts and motors bouncing off buildings. It was impossible to get a fix on where they were and how many. Quite a few passed right in front of his hiding spot (there was no mistaking when the cycle-noise was only six feet from your ears) but none seemed to pay it any mind.

When the echoes began to fade away into the distance, Hal allowed himself the luxury of a deep breath and leaned against the wall. The leaden sky outside provided just enough light through the window for him to see a scorched countertop neat the back of the room, as well as the remains of some tables and chairs. Painted on one wall, partly obscured by a layer of black grime and smoke damage, was the kelly-green Starbucks logo. _Just my luck. First time I come in here when there's no line, and the counter-person's taking a break_, he thought with a smile, then stood up and walked over to the counter, hoping to find some clue as to where he'd landed up. Obviously, the energy that the Casimir engine had absorbed, then let out in a blinding burst, was sufficient enough to have somehow teleported the Green Lantern to a point far beyond San Diego. Since it was still daytime in this place, it couldn't be anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. It'd also have to be someplace that would possibly have snow in June, as well as a large, run-down urban area. The only place that sprung to mind was Australia, but those guys in the garage sure didn't sound Australian. The numbers refused to add up.

He kicked at a small chunk of masonry in frustration and watched it skitter across the floor, coming to rest against a twisted wire rack. Jordan had paid the rack no mind when he'd first looked about the shop, but now that he was standing closer to it, he saw the metal sign attached to the top, and the message still semi-legible upon it:

_**Complimentary Newspapers**_

_**Courtesy of**_

_**THE SEATTLE TIMES**_

It took Hal a moment to wrap his head around that. Sure, Seattle was infamous for its lousy weather patterns (he'd been witness to more than one bone-soaking downpour while visiting Ollie and Dinah back when the city had been their stomping grounds), but more than six inches of snow in June? The thought was ludicrous...unless it wasn't June anymore...

The roar of engines grew closer again, temporarily snapping Hal out of his train of thought. He slipped behind the counter and waited for the noise to fade, but this time it became a low, steady thrum of idling motors. _Didn't fool them for long, _he thought as he listened to the gang members call out to each other, laying out a plan of attack to find him. Hal spied a door leading to a back storeroom behind the counter and decided to chance it. Anything was better than sitting there waiting for them.

While the storeroom was in worse shape than the coffee shop proper, he managed to wade through the mess and pry open an emergency exit leading to an alley. Once he was sure the coast was clear, he headed off to the right, keeping the general direction of the garage to his back. His mind was racing along as well, filling with thoughts of not just _where _he might be, but_ when._

_Okay, let's say this is Seattle. That puts me about a thousand miles north of where I started. Fine, I can believe that, but I shouldn't jump to conclusions about being knocked into another time. What proof do you have beyond snow flurries, Jordan?_ He reached the end of the alley, skidding to a stop and pressing his back to the wall. Out in the street, he could see three bikes idling in front of a building across the way, but only one gangbanger was in sight, pacing on the sidewalk and toting more of that high-tech ordnance. _Well, the guns these guys have is a good start, _he told himself,_ along with the fact that they all seem to take fashion tips from Mad Max movies. And let's not forget that a few of those cars I saw earlier didn't look like standard Detroit rolling iron. If I'm still in the same time-frame that I woke up in this morning, then I have become seriously out of touch._

No matter the where or when, Hal needed to get out of the area, and in one piece. That meant better transportation than just his boots. He saw a length of pipe lying at the mouth of the alley, picked it up, then waited until the guy turned away from him again. It was impossible to be noiseless with all that snow crunching underfoot, but Hal was quiet enough to get within six feet of the guy before he heard him and brought his gun up. Green Lantern rushed him and swung the pipe, knocking the gun out of his hands before he could get off a shot, then stepped to the side and delivered a blow to the small of the man's back. Hal stood ready to swing again, but the man was on the ground, cursing from the pain and in no rush to get up. Deciding that was good enough, Hal went over to one of the bikes and hopped on. While the frame was bulkier than he was used to, and the tires as broad as those found on a car, the throttle and brake appeared to be the same as motorcycles he'd ridden before. Once again, that was good enough.

As he began to gun the throttle, the two missing gang members came out of the building. "Hey! He's down here!" one of them shouted, and the two of them opened fire on him. Hal peeled out, narrowly missing a bullet to the head, but one of the other shots sank into his right thigh, inches above his knee. The bike went into a skid, but Hal managed to correct it and continue down the street, fighting the instinct to take his hand off the throttle and clamp it over the wound. "It'll keep," he hissed through gritted teeth, "just get clear of these idiots first."

He weaved down rubble-strewn streets and past husks of buildings until he saw signs (what few were still there) pointing the way to Interstate 90. He was familiar with I-90 from previous Seattle visits, and used the markers to orient his path in a roughly eastward direction, so as not to find himself possibly driving into Puget Sound. Meanwhile, the trail of bikers behind him seemed to grow every time he glanced back: just the two at first, then another, then three more, until he had nine hulking machines on his tail. He had a good lead on them, but as the remains of the city dwindled away to nothing, so did his hopes of losing them. Hal pressed on, but he wasn't sure how much longer he could last: the green of his boot was being buried under red, and the wound itself was beginning to itch and burn. He didn't take that as a good sign, especially since the exposed portions of his face were having a similar sensation. _Maybe it's frostbite from all this snow blowing in my face, _he reasoned._ The uniform's insulated, but the cold's starting to cut through that, too._

After what seemed like years of driving through endless white, Hal spotted a cluster of low buildings to the north. He opened the throttle a little more and made a beeline towards them. As he drew closer, he saw they were a collection of warehouses (though many had fallen in on themselves) encompassed by a high chain-link fence. A large, battered metal sign still hung from the fence, stating the place to be Maple International Shipping & Storage. The message spray-painted over the top of this held Hal's attention a bit more:

_**YOU COME IN HERE, YOU WON'T COME OUT**_

Considering how lousy his other options were, Hal decided to risk it and slid to a stop in front of the gate. It was padlocked shut and wrapped in multiple lengths of chain. Whomever wrote the message on the sign was serious about their "No Visitors" policy. The fence itself was roughly twelve feet high and topped with coils of razor wire, some of which had fallen away. He picked one of the clear spots and began to climb, relying more on his arms so as to take pressure off his injured leg. By the time he made it over the top, the bikers on his tail had passed into firing range, and they peppered the fence with bullets as Hal made his descent. He let go with only four feet to go, then ran as fast as he could up the main roadway between the warehouses, pain ripping through his knee like a sawblade with every step.

Once again, the need to find cover was paramount. Unfortunately, the warehouses that were still intact were also locked tight. As he moved deeper into the complex, Hal began to realize he was better off on the cycle. All he'd succeeded in doing was corralling himself for a slaughter. That point became crystal-clear when he turned right after darting between two of the storage units and found himself in a cul-de-sac. A large, imposing warehouse stood before him, flanked by makeshift walls of corrugated metal, blocking off any exit save for the way he just came. Hal turned around to go back, but it was too late: five of the gangbangers were already coming in the same way he had, guns out and their desire to use them written all over their faces. "Fun time's over, Greenie," one of them said. "You made us waste a lotta juice comin' out here, so now we're gonna take it outta your ass."

Hal set his feet and raised his fists. If any of them even tried to touch him, they'd be walking away with his ring-print on their jaw. His right leg was almost numb, and he felt light-headed from the blood loss, but he was resolved to not stop fighting until someone put a bullet in his head. In fact, when the crack of a gunshot rang out, Hal thought one of the gang members had tried to do just that, but then he realized the noise had come from _behind_ him. At the same moment, the head of the centermost man snapped back, and he fell to the ground with a thud, a neat bullethole between his eyes. The remaining gangbangers brought their guns up, cursing and yelling, "Where'd that come from?" in turn.

"Well, lookee here," a voice called out from somewhere in the vicinity of the large warehouse, "Ah come up here fer a bit of peace an' quiet, an' whut do Ah find? A whole passel of skunks a-sittin' on muh front porch!" The Southern twang on some of the words was so heavy, they became almost unintelligible. "Whut's the matter, don't they teach y'all how tuh read no more?"

"Listen," one of the men answered, "this bastard here attacked us on our own turf..."

"An' now yo're on _mine!_ 'Sides, Ah don't give a damn whut he done tuh y'all afore, all's Ah see right now is one unarmed man bleedin' tuh death an' the five of yuh...correction, the _four_ of yuh loaded fer bear with nary a scratch on yuh. Figure Ah'm just givin' the fella a fair chance."

"Fair chance? You son of a bitch..." The man began to take aim at the warehouse, but another shot rang out before he even had time to pull the trigger. His body landed right next to the first one.

"Don't test me, boys!" The last word came out sounding more like "bo-ahs". "Ah didn't get all muh beauty sleep last night, an' Ah'm feelin' a mite cranky!"

Hal stood stock-still the entire time, not wanting to give either party a reason to turn their attention back to him. _Dear God, _he thought, _this guy sounds like he's enjoying all this._ He began to wonder in whose hands he'd be better off.

"Screw this," one of the remaining gang members said, "he ain't worth it." He took a few steps backward, then turned and bolted back the way they'd come in. The others hesitated for a moment, then decided to follow suit, leaving Hal to the mercy of the unseen gunman. He slowly turned to face the warehouse. Now that things had calmed down a bit, he could see a series of horizontal slots about eight feet above the hangar-like doors. He then realized the design of the cul-de-sac was quite intentional: anyone that came through the area's single entrance would find themselves running right into the gunman's line of fire.

"Yuh all right, son?" the gunman called out.

"I've had better days."

"Ah know whut yuh mean. Y'all come on up tuh the doors an' we'll get yuh fixed up right as rain. An' don't worry, Ah've got yuh covered if'n them owlhoots decide tuh double back."

Hal began to hobble over to the warehouse, thinking, _Owlhoots? Who talks like that?_ It seemed a rather silly thought to be having in the middle of all this madness, but something about that phrase (not to mention the voice that said it) kept picking at his mind, refusing to go away. It was familiar somehow, a memory that he just couldn't dredge up.

The doors slid open just enough to let two people out: a young man and a woman, both of them bundled against the bitter cold much better than Hal was. "Hey there, bud," the man said, "need a hand?" He then put Hal's right arm over his shoulders before the Green Lantern had a chance to say anything. The woman did the same on his left, and he let them all but carry him into the warehouse. As they passed through the entrance, Hal looked up and saw a catwalk stretching out above his head, and the underside of the gunman's boots. Hanging down from the catwalk was an old wooden sign declaring that This Is A Dark Ride. Hal couldn't agree more.

The interior of the warehouse had been divided up with more of that corrugated metal, creating false walls. Crates and equipment were stacked up all over, and cables ran down from the high ceilings and snaked across the cement floor to provide light and power where needed. About a half-dozen people were gathered in the front hall, none of them looking anywhere near as rough-and-tumble as the ones Hal had seen in the parking garage. After one of them closed the door to the outside, the woman beside Hal said, "Somebody go find Vance, tell him to get down to the infirmary!" She and the young man (actually, he seemed only a year or two out of boyhood) began to steer Hal down one of the hallways, but he asked them to stop a moment.

"There's at least four more of those guys out there," he told them. "I can see that you folks have your front door pretty well taken care of, but you might consider flushing them all out before they can regroup."

"Ah wouldn't worry too much 'bout thet," Hal heard the gunman say directly behind him. "Fellas like thet, they kin be like big, mean dogs: all snarlin' an' snappin' at yuh, but soon's yuh show 'em yo're a bigger, meaner dog than they is, they run home with their tails 'tween their legs."

Hal turned around, meaning to tell the gunman that you can't be too careful, but the Green Lantern found himself struck dumb when he saw him. The clothes the man wore were out of character for him (a black shirt and boots coupled with pants and a long coat of the deepest midnight blue) but the Old West-style gunbelts crisscrossing his hips suited him quite well. They weren't the ones he saw the man wearing the last time they met, but that was no matter, nor was the fact that the man had to be at least a century out of his element. Hal was just glad to see a familiar face, even one as badly scarred as this man's.

"Jonah Hex?" Hal said, then let out a laugh. "Of all the people...I must be dreaming."

Jonah's brow furrowed. "Do Ah know yuh from somewheres, stranger?"

"I know it's been a few years...about six or seven, from my point of view." Hal slipped free of the two people flanking him and took a few careful steps forward. "I wouldn't think you'd forget somebody like me, though. Or this." He held up his right hand, the ring facing toward Jonah.

"Yuh better start talkin' sense soon, or Ah'll toss yuh back outside muhself." The anger in his voice was becoming plain, even under the thick Southern dialect.

"You really don't remember? Come on, Jonah, it was back in 1878, near a little town in Arizona called Desecration..."

Jonah's eyes grew wide. At first, Hal thought he'd succeeded in jogging the gunfighter's memory, then he realized the look was more akin to shock. Behind him, Hal heard the woman breathe, "Oh, shit."

"Ah cain't know yuh," Jonah replied in a low, even tone.

Now it was Hal's turn to furrow his brow. It wasn't so much _what_ Jonah had said as it was _how:_ not "don't", but "can't". He started to take another step, saying, "What are you talking about?" but his injured leg gave out before he could finish and he pitched forward, falling right into Jonah's arms. He stared at Hal for a moment like the Green Lantern was a live grenade, then his expression darkened, the unmarred left side of his face becoming almost as ugly and twisted as the scars and burns on the right.

"Get the Hell away from me!" Jonah shouted as he pushed Hal to the floor. He clamped his jaw tight as needles of pain jabbed into his gunshot wound. Then Jonah drew a gun and pointed it at Hal. Unlike the holster it sat in, the firearm was no antique: it was a .357 Magnum, a proverbial "Dirty Harry" gun. "Touch me again, an' Ah swear tuh God Ah'll kill yuh," he snarled.

The woman stepped forward, putting herself between Jonah and Hal. "Put it away, cowboy," she said.

"I don't think he can hear you, Stiletta," the young man said as he bent down to try and pull Hal to his feet.

She ignored him and kept her eyes fixed on Jonah, staring him down from beneath a sweep of blonde hair. "Shooting this guy won't change anything, you know that. Now calm down, put the gun away, and we'll work on getting some answers."

"Ah don't want no answers," Jonah said, neither his hand nor his eye wavering. If he'd pulled the trigger at that moment, the bullet would have passed through the woman's stomach and into Hal's skull. "Ah want this bastard tuh disappear."

Hal climbed to his feet, leaning heavily on the young man. The barrel of the gun tracked him the whole time. "Jonah, what the Hell did..."

_"Shut up._ Should've shot yuh when Ah had the chance, but now yo're in here...yo're in here like thet...thet _thing_ was..." He swallowed hard. "_Ah don't want tuh know any more."_

"Cutter, get this guy out of here, _fast,_" the woman ordered, never taking her eyes off the gunfighter.

"No argument here." The young man tugged on Hal's arm and led him down the hallway they were originally headed to. Above them, suspended from the ceiling by cables, a herd of carousel horses hung in mid-gallop. Some were missing a leg or two, others their entire head. The surrealism of the entire day was becoming a bit much for Hal.

Little did he know, the worst was yet to come.

* * *

"Congratulations, you succeeded in scaring the holy hell out of the guy, I think," Stiletta said. The two of them had gone up onto the catwalk, where they could have at least a modicum of privacy. She knew that people were still looking up at them standing there, her and the "psycho cowboy". They were probably wondering why she hadn't taken his guns away, or how she could feel safe talking to somebody who always seemed like he was two steps from going off the deep end. Some days she wondered herself.

Jonah hadn't said a word since she'd gotten him to holster his pistol, and his expression had become unreadable. The man had a poker face card sharks would kill to possess. Once they'd climbed up the ladder to the catwalk, he leaned against the rail and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. After snapping off the filter and tossing it to the floor far below, he produced a wooden match (she had no idea where he kept finding those) and sparked it with a flick of his thumbnail. Stiletta kept waiting for Jonah to light his thumb on fire doing that, but it never happened. As he smoked, he stared out at the cul-de-sac through the slots cut into the warehouse wall, not even acknowledging that he'd heard a word she said.

"I know all this has been rough on you, but you can't keep flying off the handle like this." She gestured to the people below them. "They won't put up with it much longer...and I'm not sure I can, either." She looked at his face for a reaction, which wasn't easy: she was standing on Jonah's right side. It was mostly scar tissue, his eye wide and staring, and the flesh of his cheek burned through until you could see his teeth, one measly flap of skin still intact. She had no idea what had happened to him to cause that, and she was almost afraid to ask. "This isn't like...that other thing," she continued, "you can _talk _to this guy, he might be able to help you."

"Get him out of here," Jonah replied, his voice low.

"What?"

"Patch him up, give him a coat, then kick his ass out of here." He took a final drag off his cigarette, then tossed it away like he'd done with the filter. "Use one of them emergency doors."

"Dammit, Jonah, that's not up to you..."

"Ah don't want tuh know any more," he told her, echoing what he'd said earlier. He pulled out the pack of cigarettes again, but this time, Stiletta saw the slight trembling in his hand.

"Maybe you should go get some rest. I'll ask around, see if somebody can fill in until..."

"Ah ain't no damn invalid, woman, so quit treatin' me like one, " Jonah growled, then lit his new smoke. It took a couple tries this time. "Ah've got a job tuh do, just let me do it."

She turned away from him, saying, "Fine, have it your way," then climbed down the ladder. When she looked back up at him, she saw that he'd picked up the sniper rifle that was kept up there specifically for watchdog duty and was checking the rounds like nothing happened. _Ignoring the problem won't make it go away, cowboy,_ Stiletta thought. _I wish I could make you understand that. _She shrugged off her heavy coat, stashed it in a locker near the motor pool, then headed down the hall to the infirmary.


	3. Don't Know Much About History

**3: DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY**

Hal lay on his back, jaw clenched tight and eyes fixed on the ceiling. He wanted to tear off his gloves and scratch at the itchy spots on his face with his bare nails, but he'd been told that was a bad idea. "It just makes it worse," the young man they'd called Cutter said. "Soon as Vance takes care of your leg, he'll help you with that problem."

_Not soon enough,_ Hal said to himself, and tried not to think about how badly he wanted to scratch, or about the numerous bloodstains that were permanently embedded in the infirmary's concrete floor, or that the strongest thing they had as far as painkillers went was a local anesthetic.

"I've almost got it," Vance said, holding down Hal's leg with one dark hand and using a medical clamp like a pair of tweezers with the other. "Little bastard's worked its way in deep. Lucky for you, it missed the femoral artery."

Hal grunted in response.

"Hang tight a bit longer, and the doctor will give you a sucker when he's done...okay, got it, flush it out." Vance moved his stocky frame out of the way so Cutter could bathe the wound with antiseptic. Both of them could clearly hear Hal grind his teeth. "You've been a real trooper, buddy," Vance said, and patted the Green Lantern on the shoulder. "Another couple minutes and you'll be all stitched up."

"Great," Hal groaned. "Where's my sucker?"

"I lied. We're all out." He held up the clamp, showing his patient the bloody slug. "You can keep this for a souvenir, if you want."

"Consider it your fee."

Vance chuckled, and Jordan heard a metallic clatter as the man put the clamp down on an instrument tray. Despite the surroundings, the medical equipment these people had surprised Hal: he was lying on an actual gurney, and he saw scattered about the room an array of items that looked like they could have come straight from any hospital, including what appeared to be a motorized wheelchair, though the wires hanging out of an open panel on its side told him that it wasn't available at the moment.

"So are you really a doctor?" Hal asked. He could occasionally feel a prick and tug as Vance put in the stitches.

"First-year intern," he said, "but I've gotten a lot of on-the-job experience."

"You should have seen what he had to do to Hex last month," Cutter added. "Dude was digging all around his guts for hours."

"Um, Cutter, I don't think he wants to hear about that right now."

"What? It obviously turned out good."

"Actually, I do..._nngh_...I want to hear about it." Hal gestured for Cutter to step closer. "What happened?"

"Same as you: scavs. Different guys, though, going by their clothes. Him and Stiletta were coming here for our little Thanksgiving shindig, and the fuggers gutshot him while they were still a few miles away. She got away and made it here, and we rode in like the cavalry."

"Not that it really mattered," Vance said. "Hex had taken out most of them by the time we arrived."

"Yeah, that's the best part: we find him, and he's half-past dead, but he's still got his guns up!" The young man made like he was drawing sixguns. "He's a fugging Terminator, you can't stop him!"

Despite the pain, Hal had to smile. That sounded like the Jonah Hex he knew: totally unflappable, no matter what the situation. Then something else struck him. "You said this happened a month ago, around Thanksgiving."

"Yeah, like a day or two before. Why?"

Hal looked Cutter in the eye. "I'm going to ask you a very stupid question, but I want you to answer it as best you can: what's today's date? Not just the day, I want the year, too."

"It's December twentieth, 2050.," a voice said from the doorway. Hal lifted his head as best he could and saw the blond-haired woman standing there. With the coat gone, he saw that she was dressed in what looked like a very skimpy unitard with thigh-high boots. As she entered the room proper, though, the lights reflected off the near-transparent bodysuit that clung to her skin, giving the appearance of bare flesh while covering her from the neck down.

"Hey, Stiletta. You tranq your boyfriend?" Cutter asked.

"Oh yeah, he's peachy." She walked over to the gurney and stood on the side opposite Vance and Cutter. "Well, how far away from home are you?" she asked Hal.

"Excuse me?" The woman's abruptness was throwing him seriously off-rhythm.

"You asked what the date was. I assume that's so you can get your bearings. Figure you can't be from as far back as Jonah, 'cause you two don't have the same taste in clothes."

"Not even close. I'm about a half-century ahead of where I should be, and he's...I don't know, way the Hell off."

"Wait a minute," Cutter interrupted, "_this _guy's from the past, too?" He looked at Hal. "So does that mean you really know Hex, or was all that bullshit earlier?"

"Little bit of both," Stiletta said before Jordan had a chance. He glared at her, but she simply told him, "Never mind, I'll explain later."

"Can was stop playing Twenty Questions for a minute?" Vance asked as he finished strapping down the bandage on Hal's wound. He'd cut open part of the leg on the Green Lantern's uniform to accommodate the gauze, and the black fabric hung over it in ragged flaps. "Let me finish checking him over, then you can chat all you like." He reached beneath the gurney and pulled a lever so he could ratchet the head of it up and let Hal sit at a 45-degree angle. "That mask made out of the same stuff as the suit?" he asked Hal.

"Far as I know."

"Your vision's not blurry or anything?" Vance gently placed his hand beneath Hal's chin so he could move his head. "Do you feel queasy at all? Having trouble swallowing?"

"I feel kind of light-headed, but that's probably from the blood loss."

"I'd say so." Vance pulled at the neck of the uniform for a moment, then let it fall back into place. "Okay, it looks like you've got just a minor case of acid burn from the snow. Your face will be a little red for a few days, like a sunburn, but you shouldn't scar or blister. Have to keep an eye on the burns around the gunshot wound, though, make sure it doesn't get infected." He picked up the bottle of antiseptic off the instrument tray and poured some on a gauze pad. "Here, dab this on wherever it itches."

"Thanks." Hal pressed the gauze against his forehead and cheeks in turn. "You said this is from being out in the snow?"

"It's mildly radioactive," Stiletta told him. "All the water sources are, to some degree or another. Just be glad it isn't raining, that'll strip flesh right off the bone if you're not protected." She plucked at the transparent sleeve of her bodysuit.

Hal leaned back, still holding the gauze to his face. Seattle was in ruins, and the water table was hotter than Chernobyl. He could only think of one thing that could cause that. "Who dropped the bomb first?" he asked them.

"Nobody knows," Cutter said. "Most people say Russia or China. My dad used to say somebody at NORAD probably spilled their coffee on a keyboard and made the whole system short out."

"How long ago?" he asked, not really wanting to know the answer.

"Five years."

"Dammit." Hal closed his eyes, then slammed his fist onto the gurney and swore again, louder this time. He couldn't believe it: all the crises they'd overcome, all the near-misses, and it still came down to one idiot pressing a button. He took a few deep breaths, doing his best to calm down before asking his next big question: "Is any of the League left?" When no one answered, he opened his eyes and saw the three of them were looking at each other. "The Justice League...JLA. You know: Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman...any of that ring a bell?" he asked.

Still no reaction.

"What about the Justice Society, the JSA? Or the Titans...any metas at all?" Hal sat up straight, staring at them. "_Nobody _survived?"

"I think Jonah said he ran into some weirdo in New York called Batman," Stiletta said, "but the rest of that..." She shrugged.

"Metas...you're talking about metahumans," Vance said, "like those guys with the capes and the long underwear that used to fly around and beat the crap out of each other." His eyes widened, as if seeing Hal for the first time. "You mean you're one of those old guys?"

"I'm not _that _old, but yeah."

"My grandpa used to tell me about you folks. Which one are you?"

"Green Lantern."

"No foolin'?" Vance frowned. "No offense, but Gramps said you were a brother."

Hal was struck dumb for a moment, then let out a short laugh. "None taken. There's been four men on Earth that have gone by that name...no, five." He'd almost forgotten about Alan Scott. He wasn't Corps, but he'd come first. "Your grandfather must have been talking about one of my associates. He'd sub for me when I wasn't available."

"Well, he must have the slot permanently if you're here," Vance said. "Speaking of which, how the Hell _did_ you get here?"

Hal gave them a brief rundown of the incident. "From what I was told about this Casimir engine," he said when he'd finished, "I'd say that the energy from the quantum vacuum, combined with what was siphoned off my ring, was powerful enough to rip a hole in space-time briefly and blast me and the engine through it."

"Could it send you back?" Stiletta asked.

"I don't know. Maybe if it was powered back up, but my ring's dead, so if that contributed, then it's no good. Besides, the engine's not designed for time travel, it's just a side effect. Another blast could knock me further ahead, or even further backwards...assuming it didn't kill me."

Stiletta cursed under her breath, which puzzled him: why was _she _upset when _he _was the one out of time?

"It doesn't matter anyways," Cutter said, throwing up his hands, "the thing's in the hands of the Slabberz now. May as well be on the moon."

"The kid's right. If it's as big as you say, there's no way you could get in and out of their territory with it," Vance added, "and you sure as Hell can't reason with them."

"Then I'll find another way to get it from them, or I'll find another way back to my time," Hal told them. "This isn't my first trip through the timestream. I've gotten back before, I can do it again."

Stiletta looked over at Vance and Cutter, saying, "Is there any way you guys can clear out for a while? Me and the new guy have to talk."

"About what?" Cutter asked.

"About what a nosy little shit you can be," she answered. "Come on, guys, this is important."

Vance regarded her for a moment, then said, "Okay, will twenty minutes do? I still need to clean up around here."

"Perfect."

The two of them filed out, Vance pulling the curtain over the doorway shut behind them. Stiletta grabbed a high stool from a corner of the infirmary and brought it over beside the gurney. "I'm not sure where to start," she said as she sat down.

"Then let me," Hal said. "Do you know who Jonah Hex is? I mean who he _really_ is?"

She nodded. "He's a cowboy. Well, he says 'bounty hunter', but he's from the Old West, so it's all cowboys to me."

"Do you know how he got here?"

"It's a long story."

"I'm not going anywhere right now."

Her mouth twisted, then she said, "My father brought him here. About eight years ago, before the war, he'd been doing research work for the National Security Agency. Time travel research." She held up a hand. "Before you get excited, forget it, the equipment and the complex it was in got destroyed months ago. Nothing's left. Anyways, while my father was working on the project, he found out about the war, or at least when it would happen, so he rounded up as much tech and raw data as he could, and used the time machine to bypass the war." Stiletta's eyes wandered down to the floor. "My mom and I didn't know this, of course. He just disappeared. We'd heard about an explosion at the building he worked at, and we thought maybe he'd died, but nobody would tell us anything. Then all these people kept calling the house, and I'd see cars I didn't know parked down the street and following me to school..."

"The government thought you and your mother knew something."

"He didn't say a damn thing! He just left us to die..." A tear trickled down her cheek, and she brushed it away roughly, saying, "My mom sent me to live with her parents out on their farm in the country, just 'til the Feds laid off us. That's how I survived when the bombs hit: I was in the middle of nowhere. When I found out a couple years later that my father was alive and living like a king off the tech he stole, I swore I'd kill him." She brought her head back up. "And I did, too. Me and Hex blew that whole damn fortress to kingdom come."

Hal didn't like how calm she sounded about the deed, but he was in no position to judge. "That doesn't really explain to me how somebody like Hex got mixed up in all this, though," he said.

"It was one of my father's side-ventures. When he arrived here, he built another time machine and used it to steal more tech from the past, and later to stage reenactments."

"'Reenactments'?" Hal echoed.

"He'd grab people out of various time periods," Stiletta explained, "soldiers mostly, and set them up in artificial environments to have them fight battles. He'd keep them drugged up so they wouldn't know where they really were, and stick 'em in stasis tubes in between battles...if they lived. He did it to hundreds, maybe thousands of people, and him and his guests would sit back and watch as they killed each other, like it was a movie or something."

"So one day he decides to grab Jonah Hex..."

She nodded. "Jonah said he was in the middle of a bar when it happened. One minute he's facing down some scumbag, and the next..." She snapped her fingers. "They'd stuck him in a facsimile of the bar, but he figured it out pretty quick and busted out of there. He ran into me not long after that out in the wasteland, and we've been friends ever since."

"Just friends? I thought Cutter said..."

"He's just bullshitting. Everybody teases me because Jonah's always calling me 'darlin'' and 'sugar' and stuff. It's just the way he talks." She paused, then said, "I think sometimes it's not just talk for him, though. He'll give me a look or say something, and I think he's trying to say something else, you know? But it's too weird."

"Because of where he's from?"

"No, because I'm only twenty-three and he's pushing forty. I never went for older men." She waved a hand at the Green Lantern. "So, what about you? You said you're from the turn of the millennium, so how'd _you _run into Hex?"

"Like I said before, this isn't my first experience with time travel. It happened roughly seven years ago, while I was on a mission with the JLA. We were checking out a strange power surge near the Grand Canyon. Turned out to be a trap set by a man that called himself the Lord of Time."

"Not _too _full of himself, was he?" Stiletta joked.

Hal smiled. "Some of us heroes aren't much better. Pompous name or not, he had the goods to back it up: he knocked me and my friends all the way back to 1878, and erased our memories somehow, to boot. I woke up alone in the middle of the desert, my brain half-baked from laying out in the sun, and who should happen to come riding along at that moment?"

"Jonah Hex, king of the last-minute rescues."

"Make fun all you want, that man saved my life. Unlike now, my ring was working back then, but I couldn't remember how to use it, or even what it was. Only time I could make the damn thing work was by _not _thinking about it, it seemed, like a reflex action. Hex kept me in one piece the whole time, helped me puzzle things out, even got me back together with my friends." He shook his head. "For the life of me, though, I can't think of what I might have done back then to tick him off so bad."

"You didn't do anything to him, and that's the problem."

"What do you mean?"

She sighed. "You said you met him in 1878...you're _sure_ of that year?"

"Yeah, Jonah told me that himself."

"No, he didn't ...not yet. You see, Jonah told me when he got yanked out of the Old West, it was _1875..._which means _that_ Jonah Hex out there hasn't met you yet." She pointed towards the doorway.

Green Lantern gaped at her as the information settled in. "That's impossible...I mean, it's possible, but...if he's _here, _how did he get _back?"_

It gets worse. You get a look at that amusement park stuff on your way down here?"

"I saw the horses, and that sign near the front entrance: 'This Is A Dark Ride'...that's what they used to hang up over rides like the Tunnel of Love at the carnival."

"Marya...that's Vance's wife...she collects that stuff. When they moved into these warehouses three years back, they found one full of things like that, so she started to use them for decoration." Stiletta shrugged. "Everybody needs a hobby, I guess, something to take your mind off what life's like these days." She waved a hand vaguely towards one of the infirmary walls, saying, "There's an area off thataway where she keeps the unused pieces. She's got so much junk back there, she doesn't remember where it all came from. That's where we found it."

"Found what?"

"Cutter told you about Jonah getting shot, right?" Hal nodded, and she went on. "Well, with him all busted up and winter starting to set in, we decided to stick around awhile. So Jonah's off one day wandering around the place, and in one of the storage rooms he finds this statue...or at least it looked like a statue." She stopped for a moment, rubbing her hand over her mouth in a nervous gesture. "God, it almost made me sick when I realized what it was, especially with Jonah just sitting there in front of it. Someone...at some time in the past, someone killed Jonah Hex and had his body stuffed like a hunting trophy."

"Are you saying Jonah found _his own corpse? Here?_

Stiletta nodded. "He looked...I mean, the _body_ looked pretty old. The hair was all white, and the costume was pretty moth-eaten. That was the other crazy thing: it was dressed in this silly white cowboy outfit, with all this fringe and floral embroidery. You wanted to laugh when you saw it, but you couldn't, not when you knew what it really was. For God's sake, there were rhinestones on the back spelling out his _name! _It was ridiculous!"

"Jesus Christ," Hal whispered, and looked towards the doorway, thinking of what Jonah had said to him earlier. "No wonder he reacted the way he did." He then turned back to Stiletta. "How did he take it? The same way?"

"No, he was actually kind of happy at first. 'Guess it means I'll be goin' back home one day,' he told me. Of course, everybody else found out about the thing, and we had to do some explaining...I don't think any of us thought about how this might effect Jonah in the long run. I mean, on the surface, it looked like good news, finding out he wouldn't be stuck in the future forever. But to find out you're going to end up like that, and you don't even know how...it was like somebody handed him a book about his life, but they'd ripped out a bunch of chapters and left the last page: 'So they tossed Hex's stuffed corpse into a warehouse and forgot all about him. The End.' We don't even know _when _it happened, just that he's dead in the _past _but alive _here_. It didn't take long for that to start playing with his mind." She shook her head. "Nobody really noticed at first...well, we _noticed_, but he was still recovering from that gutshot, we all thought that was why he seemed so shaky and pale some mornings. Vance started to slip him a few more painkillers, figuring that's why he wasn't sleeping, but it didn't seem to help."

"He never said anything, not even to you?"

"I honestly think Hex would rather shoot himself in the head than admit he has a problem with _anything_. That's the sort of guy he is: too macho for his own good. So a couple of weeks go by, and he still looks like shit, and now he's starting to smell a little boozy in the morning. Now we know something serious is going on, but he won't talk, won't even admit he's been drinking. Then one night, he wakes up the whole complex by screaming at the top of his lungs. He's not in his room, and we figure out it's coming from the storage area, so we head down there and Jonah...he'd ripped the statue off its base and was tearing it apart with his bare hands. God, it was awful. Whoever had stuffed the body had wired the skeleton together too and used it like an armature, so there were these splintered bits of bone sticking out. They'd cut up Jonah's hands and he's bleeding like crazy, but he wouldn't stop, he just kept yelling at the thing that he wasn't dead, and the look on his face...the whole time I've known him, I've never seen him look scared. Confused, yeah, and pissed off more times than I can count, but that night...I swear to God, I've never seen anyone so terrified in my entire life."

She hung her head down. "After all the weirdness he's had to put up with since he came to this time, finding that thing finally drove him to the breaking point. He still has his good days, but they're few and far between. If you put a gun in his hand, he's the same old Jonah Hex like you saw earlier, but beyond that, all he does is drink and sleep...or at least try to sleep. Those nightmares are eating him alive, but he still refuses to admit he has a problem." She looked up at Green Lantern again, saying, "If you really do know him, even though he doesn't know you yet, you've got to help me put him back together."

"How? It sounds like I'm part of the problem."

"That's true. Matter of fact, he wants me to throw you out. But I want you to stay and talk to him. Maybe if he hears something _good_ about his future, it won't look so bleak to him," Stiletta said. "Better yet, if you find a way back to your time, maybe you could take him along, get him away from all this."

"I don't think that would help at all. His home is the Old West, not now or a half-century ago. It would probably just set him more on edge." Hal sighed and leaned back, pressing the gauze to his forehead again. "And as far as telling him anything, I can't do that without possibly effecting the timestream. Remember, _his_ future is in _my _past. If I say or do the wrong thing to him now, it could change what happened back then."

"And what would happen to your past if you do nothing, Jonah goes crazy, and he _never _gets back home?" Stiletta leaned forward on the stool. "Face it, hero: if you want to make sure Jonah Hex is ever going to save your life, you're going to have to save his first."


	4. Coffin Varnish and Cowboy Killers

_Hello, and welcome to Chapter Four! Obviously, I must be doing something right if you're still reading -- while the review count has been low so far (both here and on the various links I set up), they've all been positive, which I'm glad to see. Keep those cards and letters coming, folks, I'll be happy to answer any questions and/or complaints you have. Until then, let's see how our favorite bounty hunter is hanging in there... _

**4: COFFIN VARNISH AND COWBOY KILLERS**

The hallway leading to the living quarters was empty, which suited Jonah just fine. He didn't want to talk to anyone now that he was done playing watchdog, and he sure as Hell didn't want anybody staring at him. Over the years, he'd become accustomed to people's lingering looks in regards to his face, but he knew that the looks he got in this place weren't due to that. _They all think Ah've gone 'round the bend, _he said to himself, _but they're wrong. Ah'm just tired is all. Hell, Ah'm over two hunnert years old, Ah've got every right tuh be tired._

Near the end of the hall, he stopped in front of a metal door with HEX spraypainted on it, the bright red letters standing out on the bare steel like neon. Stiletta had done that for him after one too many incidents of Jonah entering the wrong room. It was embarrassing in a way: he could follow a week-old trail across hard alkali, but drop him in a corridor lined with a dozen metal doors and he was lost. _Ain't muh fault, they all look alike,_ he thought as he entered the room._ Don't like livin' in this coffee tin, anyhow._ He didn't have much choice in the matter, though. He went where Stiletta went, and right now she wanted to be here with her friends, so here he stayed.

Compared to the others, Jonah's room was quite bare. All he had was a bed, a folding chair with a small table, and a pile of clothes that stank of booze, sweat, and cigarettes. He'd grown up with very few material possessions, and tried to keep his adult life similarly uncluttered. Besides, most of the things he _did_ want just didn't exist anymore, though he sometimes managed to find decent substitutes. Take the room's illumination, for example: instead of using the naked light bulb that dangled down from the room's low ceiling, he lit an old kerosene lantern he'd found in one of the storerooms. It was battered and rusty, with the enameled Coleman logo nearly obliterated, but Jonah was more comfortable with the soft glow it gave off than the harsh yellow-white glare the more modern fixtures supplied.

At the moment, comfort was just what he wanted. The presence of the familiar, the stability of what he knew to be true. He tossed his coat aside and sat down at the table. Next to the lantern lay two items that, up until a month ago, he thought he'd never see again: his Dragoons. Jonah picked one up, feeling the heft of over four pounds of cold iron as it rested in his left hand. He let the smooth ivory handle slip into his palm, cocked the hammer, then let it fall back against the chamber. _She's held up good, _he thought, then spun the unloaded pistol by its trigger guard around his finger, first clockwise, then counterclockwise. The move had no real purpose other than to show off how at ease a gunfighter was with his equipment. Jonah did it a few more times, occasionally stopping to take aim at a random target in the room. When he finished, he tucked the pistol beneath his belt, just as he used to do. Unlike himself, most gunfighters were right-handed, so finding a left-hand gunbelt was rare...although it appeared that he'd found one near the end. The belts he currently wore had come off his corpse, as had the Dragoons. After he'd destroyed it, Jonah had asked the others to burn the remains, but he'd kept the guns and their holsters, just so he could have a small piece of home, albeit an impossible one.

_They shouldn't be here, _he thought, _Ah threw 'em away, lost 'em. _Well, 'lost' wasn't the proper word: he knew exactly where they were, there was just at least fifty feet of water between him and them, not to mention a couple centuries. He pulled the gun out again and looked at it. _Did Ah go back for 'em? No way in Hell Ah could've got 'em out, thet's why Ah didn't try the first time. But they're here, they were in muh hands, but they shouldn't be... _The thoughts circled around his head in an endless loop, questions with no answers, building in speed until his hand began to shake, almost dropping the gun. His right hand shot out, and he held onto the Dragoon with a white-knuckle grip as he shuddered. He'd fought against it the whole time he'd been on guard duty, but now that he was alone, it overwhelmed him. Eyes shut, teeth bared, Jonah tried to ride out the wave of hopelessness that threatened to drown him. His whole life, he felt like the entire world was against him. Abandoned by his parents, scarred by his adopted Apache family, spurned by nearly every woman he'd ever given his heart to, beaten and shot by men that weren't even fit to breathe...the only thing that had kept him going through it all was the hope that, someday, he'd have something to show for it. He'd come out on top, he'd get the girl, he'd be able to walk down the street and have people look at him with respect and admiration.

But now he knew where the end of the road led, and he couldn't even have his stupid little pipe-dream anymore. No respect for him, no hero's death, just eternity as a cheap sideshow attraction. _Nobody even cared 'bout me enough tuh put me in the ground,_ he thought, and another shudder ran through him. After a while, Jonah opened his eyes and sat up straight, his mouth dry and a hollow ache in his chest. He needed a drink...just a small one, enough to steady his hands and wet his whistle. He placed the Dragoon back on the table, then went over and knelt beside the bed, searching for the bottle from the night before. Most of the remaining alcohol had spilled out when he'd dropped it, but there were a couple swallows left, and he downed them in a flash. "Better," he said aloud, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Few more of those, an' Ah'll be right as rain."

Unfortunately, he had no more bottles stashed in the room (none he could remember, anyways), which meant he'd have to scour the pantry off the kitchen for more...and the dinner hour was approaching. The place would be full of people. "Ah kin wait," he muttered, and began to drum his fingers on the floor as he leaned against the bed, the empty bottle dangling between his legs. "Ah ain't like muh Pa, Ah kin wait...Ah ain't desperate..."

Jonah made it a full ten minutes before getting up off the floor and leaving his room.

* * *

Most people living within the confines of the warehouse called it the Hub: it was the largest room in the complex, aside from the motor pool. and everyone's favorite gathering place, especially with the kitchen right next to it. It was also one of the few rooms with unblocked windows, and though they were up rather high, it helped people's moods to be able to look out them and see that there was a world outside all this patched steel and plastic. Currently, a snowstorm was obscuring the view, giant flakes hitting the reinforced panes in wet, thudding clumps, and the fluorescents above were fired up and buzzing to supplement the waning light.

As Jonah approached the Hub's open doorway, two boys came running out into the hall, screaming like banshees as kids are wont to do. He stopped short as they bolted past him, the children barely taking notice that they'd nearly had a head-on collision with his legs. This wasn't the first time, either: there were six or seven kids living in the complex, ranging from only a year old to nearly ten like the two rugrats that had almost run Jonah down. For the life of him, he couldn't fathom how somebody could bring a child into a world like this. Then again, the Good Lord did like to spring surprises on people. Once he was sure the stampede was over, Jonah began to step forward, but stopped again when he heard the conversation drifting through the doorway.

"This is wild, man. _Two _time travelers, both under our roof." Cutter's voice. A good kid, in Jonah's opinion, but too chatty.

"I'm telling you, it's bull." That was Lewis, the resident mechanic. "Come on, think about it: Who'd want to come _here_?"

"Haven't you been listening?" Cutter said. "It wasn't by choice, same as Hex."

"Hex is bull, too. I don't believe that cowboy crap. Thinks he's fugging Clint Eastwood or something."

Jonah frowned. One of these days, he'd find out who this Eastwood fella was, and why people insisted on calling him such.

Someone laughed, then said, "I never thought of him like that, but I guess that's pretty close. Trust me, though, he's for real, and so am I." After a moment, the voice registered in Jonah's mind: the new guy, the one he'd saved from the scavs. All of the sudden, he felt very ill. What was _he _still doing here? He'd told Stiletta to kick him out. Jonah leaned against the wall, eyes shut. _Ah cain't do this_, he thought. _Ah don't even want tuh look at the jasper. Dammit, Stiletta, why didn't yuh listen tuh me?_ He tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry again, as was his throat. Behind closed eyes, Jonah could see the stranger's face, his mask, his broad white smile. _It was back in 1878, _he could hear the man say in his memory_, near a little town in Arizona called Desecration. _A time he'd never lived through, a place he'd never seen or heard of. Another impossibility, and it was in there, blocking the way.

Jonah opened his eyes and looked up at the ceiling, whispering, "Lord, why do yuh keep doin' this tuh me?" He did his best to steel himself, then walked into the room. The furniture within was a hodge-podge of beat-up chairs, a couple of worn couches, and various-sized tables, all scattered around the place. The stranger was sitting in an ugly yellow easy chair, his injured leg propped up on a coffee table and wrapped in a brace. Nearest to him on a couch was Stiletta, with Cutter stretched out on the other end clad in an oversized Seattle Mariners jersey and jeans. Lewis stood close to the door and turned towards Jonah when he came in.

"Well, speak of the Devil," Lewis said, arms crossed over his dirty coveralls.

"Been called worse," Jonah replied as he walked past, doing his level best not to make eye contact with anyone.

"Jonah, why don't you come sit over here for a while?" Stiletta asked, and shifted on the couch to make room for him. "Haven't seen you for hours."

He didn't even dignify the request with an answer, just kept heading towards the kitchen.

"You say you know Hex," Lewis said to the stranger. "Tell me, has he always been an asshole, or this a recent development?"

That made him stop. Jonah spun on his heel and walked back over to where Lewis stood. He had no love for the mechanic: the man had a habit of shooting his mouth off and constantly smelled like a train yard. As he stood toe-to-toe with Lewis, staring him down, Jonah searched through his memory for what would be a good response. Although both he and the residents of the 21st Century spoke English, he'd quickly learned that it wasn't necessarily the same language, and it took a moment to produce an insult that sounded "modern" enough.

"Bite me, fuckface," Jonah growled, and turned around to continue back to the kitchen. Cutter let out a laugh more akin to a bark, then covered his mouth to hold in any more outbursts. Lewis did the smart thing and stayed quiet.

Just as Jonah had feared, there were four people running around the kitchen area. Vance's wife Marya was directing the chaos, as always. It amazed Jonah the way that little Mexican (_Latino, _he corrected himself, _she don't like bein' called a Mexican, same as yuh cain't call Vance a Negro_) seemed to be on top of everything, making sure none of the 20-odd people living in the complex were overlooked for anything, Jonah included, as evidenced by the tray of food that always turned up outside his door whenever he decided he couldn't deal with the mealtime crowd. Despite her best intentions, though, he'd lost at least 5 pounds in the past month. His mostly-liquid diet didn't help.

Marya spotted Jonah out of the corner of her eye as he tried to slip into the pantry. "Come to help?" she asked.

"Hell, no. This is women's work."

"Watch your mouth!" Red, one of Stiletta's friends, called out as he struggled with a can opener. His girlfriend Mookie took it from him and managed to get it working.

"Like Ah said," Jonah replied, and stepped backwards into the dimly-lit pantry. It was about 30 feet square, with rows of aluminum shelves stacked high with various shelf-stable goods. Doing his best to act casual, he headed to the section he'd last seen the liquor in. There wasn't much available (especially since he'd been pinching some when he couldn't get out and buy it himself) but it would do for now. He'd picked out a pint with the heartwarming name of Southern Comfort when he heard someone behind him. Jonah spun around, holding his hands (and the bottle) behind his back as Marya came around the corner. He was a good head taller than her, but her sudden presence made him feel very small indeed.

"Looking for anything in particular," she asked, "or just window shopping?"

"Cigarettes," he said. It was the excuse he'd thought up on his way down to the Hub.

"Back this way." As she turned to lead the way, Jonah pulled out his shirttail, shoved the bottle under the waistband of his pants, then tucked his shirt back in before following her. Marya led him two rows over and pointed to a shelf at his eye level. "Don't know how you missed them," she said.

Jonah mumbled thanks and grabbed two packs without looking.

"You might want to think about quitting. They give you cancer, you know."

"Y'all kin die in a light drizzle, an' yo're worried 'bout a little tobaccy?" He shook his head and walked past her out of the pantry.

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

He froze in the doorway. Caught. He began to stutter out a weak apology when Marya came up behind him, pulled a clipboard and pen off the pantry's inner wall, and held it in front of him. The inventory sheet, he'd forgotten.

"Yuh remind me of a supply sergeant Ah knew durin' the War." Jonah took the clipboard and marked down the cigarettes but omitted the whiskey. "Couldn't get a pair o' socks out of him without fillin' out twenty dif'rent forms." He hung the list back on its hook and beat a hasty retreat out of the kitchen.

As he reentered the main room, Jonah saw that the stranger was up and mingling with the growing dinner crowd, Stiletta at his side. The sight of that made him want to draw his guns and open fire. She _knew_ how he felt about this guy, and yet she was _helping _the bastard as he limped around. Jonah stuck to a far wall and followed the two of them around the room with his eyes.

"He's kind of cute," someone beside him said. He turned and saw Mookie standing there. "It's hard to judge with the mask and all," she continued, pushing a lock of her short, blue-dyed hair behind her ear, "but I bet if he took it off, he'd be a real looker." Her comments weren't doing anything to help the gunfighter's mood. "You talked to him yet, Hex?"

"No."

"Well, come on then. Don't want to be the last one, do you?" She tugged on his shirtsleeve playfully, but he yanked his arm away. "Oh, you're having one of _those_ days," she said, then walked away, making a beeline for Stiletta and her new friend. The man flashed Mookie a warm smile as she introduced herself and shook hands. It reminded Jonah of a politician making the rounds, and it made him trust the masked man even less. As Mookie and the new guy got acquainted, Stiletta glanced over in Jonah's direction, and he could tell by the look on her face that his own emotions must have been pretty plain at the moment. She leaned close to the stranger to say something, then left him to walk over to Hex's side.

"What in the blue Hell are yuh doin'?" He said through gritted teeth.

Stiletta held up her hands. "Stop. Right there, just stop," she told him. "I know you're upset about him being here..."

"'Upset' don't even cover it," he snapped.

"...but he's not here to hurt you, I swear," she continued. "He's just as concerned about you as we all are. He wants to help you."

"He kin help by leavin'."

"Nuh-uh, he's not, and you're going to listen to what he has to say. I don't care if I have to tie you to a chair, you're going to suck it up and deal with this, no more hiding."

"Ain't nothin' tuh deal with," he said, then pointed in the stranger's direction. The cigarettes in his hand had become a crumpled wad of cellophane and tobacco shreds. "An' if'n thet skunk over there says one word tuh me..."

"His name is Green Lantern."

"_Don't tell me his name!" _He leaned into Stiletta and she backpedaled, her eyes wide. "Ah don't want tuh know a damn thing 'bout him, an' Ah sure as Hell don't want tuh hear anything from him 'bout _me! _Fer all Ah know, _he's _the one thet killed me!"

"Jonah, he doesn't know..."

"Yuh believe him?" He reached out and grabbed a handful of her bodysuit. "Yuh'll listen tuh a stranger hidn' behind a mask an' not _me?_ Don't whut Ah say mean _nothin'?"_

"Let her go, Hex."

Jonah whipped his head up and saw the Green Lantern standing there, out of arm's reach but close enough to do something if he had to. "Ah warned yuh, boy. Yuh touch me..."

"I know, and I'm not. Now let Stiletta go before you hurt her."

He snorted. "Yo're crazy, Ah'd never..." But then Jonah turned back to look at her, and saw the tears in her eyes. "Yuh _know_ Ah'd never hurt yuh, sugar," he said quietly. "After everything we've been through..."

The look in her eyes told him different. He loosed his grip on her and she stepped away. Marya had come out of the kitchen, and she went over to Stiletta and put an arm around her. In fact, it seemed to Jonah that _everyone_ was in the Hub now. The only person that dared to stand close to him though was Green Lantern...the _last _person he wanted to be near. Jonah's hands drifted to his guns, both as a warning and to hide the tremors.

The masked man held up his hands, just as Stiletta had done moments before. "I know you have no reason to believe me," he said calmly, "but I am...I _will_ be...your friend."

"Ah ain't go no friends," Jonah Hex answered, and moved his darkening gaze from the Green Lantern to Stiletta. "Not a damn one." He then turned away from the both of them and headed for the exit. People scrambled to get out of his way. _Just like the good ol' days_, he thought as he walked back to his room. _Everybody thinks Ah'm some sort of monster, but not thet new fella. No sir, he comes waltzin' in here like a carpetbagger an' charms the whole lot of 'em. Sure, he's wearin' a mask, but thet ain't a good reason tuh not trust a stranger. Maybe he's just shy...right, an' muh daddy's Abe Lincoln._

He returned to his quarters, slamming the door shut behind him hard enough to shake the false walls. The sound reminded Jonah of a cell door closing. "Thet's whut this whole _world_ is," he muttered aloud, "a damn _prison_." He drove his fist against the door, making the metal reverberate again. "Nobody gives a damn 'bout me...they just dumped me in this godforsaken place an' forgot thet Ah ever _existed_..." He punched the door a few more times, but that wasn't bringing the gunfighter the satisfaction he wanted, so he grabbed the steel chair and folded it flat. "_Ah ain't gonna take it no more!"_ he bellowed, and swung the chair at the wall with both hands. "Ah'm sick an' tired of y'all pissin' on me like Ah don't matter! Ah'm sick tuh _death_ of it!" The metal wall rang like an out-of-tune churchbell, the welded seams developing splits from repeated blows. "Ah had a _life_, goddam yuh, an' y'all took it away from me!" Jonah screamed, but even he didn't know who at: God, the Green Lantern, Stiletta, her father, the warehouse's residents...perhaps his future self, dead in the past from causes unknown.

The pounding continued until his arms ached and his throat felt raw, then the twisted chair fell from his hands and he collapsed against the dented wall. He slid down to the floor, a mixture of sweat and tears streaming down his scarred face. "How much longer, Lord?" he croaked. "How long do Ah have tuh wait 'til yuh put me out of muh misery?"

* * *

"I think we've lost him."

Hal had been sitting by himself, nursing what he was pretty sure was the oldest, flattest can of Soder he'd ever drank. After dinner, most of the people had left the Hub, off to their rooms or to finish up various tasks before calling it a night. Those that stuck around broke off into their own little groups, leaving Hal by himself to reflect on everything that had happened to him that day. When Stiletta walked up and spoke to him, it took a moment for her words to cut through his ruminations. "Beg pardon?" he said.

"Jonah. I don't think he trusts anybody now, not even me." She sat down on the floor and leaned against the recliner Hal was sitting in, his right leg stretched out stiffly before him. Between the rest he'd gotten and the pills Vance had scrounged up, the pain was down to a dull throb, but the brace, while short, made it difficult for him to bend his knee. She looked up at him, saying, "Why does he have to be so stubborn?"

"I think that's how he's made it this far," Hal said. "Even back home, I know people that can't handle the concept of time travel, much less the paradox we've got going here. Remember, he's from the 19th Century: you've got to give him credit for not having a nervous breakdown the moment he got here."

Stiletta let out a sigh. "I guess so, but what about him breaking down _now_?"

Hal took a long swig off the can, buying time to think. "We have to back off," he said finally.

"_What_? Do you _want_ him to get worse?"

"No...and that's why we need to back off. You said it yourself: he's stubborn. Every time we go after him, he's going to throw up another wall, and it'll put him more on the defensive." He shifted in his seat to look Stiletta in the eye. "We're talking about a guy whose entire livelihood was based around tracking down and killing people. His guard is permanently up, and trying to blindside him for what _we_ say is his own good will get us nowhere."

"So we do nothing?"

"Just because we're not confronting him head-on doesn't mean we're doing nothing, it means we're showing the man that we're not the threat he thinks we are. Problem is, we'll have to wait until he makes the first move, and that might take weeks."

"And what exactly is 'the first move', hero?"

Hal smirked. "The same thing you've been trying to get him to do for a month: admit something's wrong...and he almost did that tonight, I think."

"Before or after he scared the Hell out of me?"

"During. When I suggested that he might be hurting you, Jonah dismissed it out of hand until he saw that he _was_. I think for a moment he really saw what this little dilemma is doing to him, and you as well." He knocked back some more Soder. "Couple more jolts like that, and he'll probably start talking."

"Meanwhile, we're all walking targets," she said, and patted Green Lantern's uninjured knee. "Great plan, hero."

Hal leaned his head back and stared at the warehouse's ceiling. "Sorry, but if you wanted an expert in psychological warfare, you should have called Batman."

As they sat there contemplating what to do about their troubled friend, Cutter came into the Hub and walked over to the two of them. "Hey, Mister Lantern, how's the leg?"

"Better, thanks...and you don't have to call me 'Mister'. Just 'Lantern' will do fine. Or 'GL', a lot of people call me that."

"Okay, cool," he said, then dropped his eyes down for a moment. "So, um, GL...you figured out where you're sackin' for the night?"

"No, not really. I guess in here on one of the couches."

"Oh, 'cause if you want, there's an extra bed in my room. It'd be quieter than the Hub, that's for sure."

Stiletta reached up and touched the young man's arm. "Cutter, you don't have to do that," she said, "we'll work something else out."

"No, no, it's cool, Dad wouldn't mind." He gestured towards Hal. "Figure if he's one of the old heroes, then he probably saved the world a billion times over. Least we can do is give him a real bed."

"All right, if you're sure," she answered, then looked over at Jordan. "Guess you two are now bunkies."

"Fine by me," he said, nodding.

Cutter's face brightened. "Really? Okay, um...crap, I gotta move that hard-drive..." He held up a finger. "Don't come down yet! I've gotta clean up the place first." He turned around and half-walked, half-ran out of the Hub, yelling over his shoulder, "Gimmie, like, an hour!"

"I'm surprised he did that," Stiletta said after Cutter left.

"What, that he offered to share his room?"

She nodded. "The extra bed was his dad's...he died last spring. Jonah and I weren't here then, but Mookie told me about it after we came in for Thanksgiving. I didn't know him too well, but he was a good guy." She waved a hand upwards, calling attention to bundles of cable crisscrossing in the rafters. "When Vance and Marya settled in, him and Cutter did most of the wiring for the place, rigged two sets of gennys...the guy was great with electronics, and his son's no slouch either." She sighed again, then said, "If it hadn't been for the damn war, the kid would be in college getting an engineering degree instead of jerry-rigging appliances."

Hal drained the last bit of Soder from the can and set it on the floor beside the recliner. "I think we've all got that in common, even Hex," he said.

"What do you mean?"

He thought of the years he spent under the thrall of Parallax, then soul-bound to the Spectre. "None of us got the future we were expecting," he answered.


	5. LateNight Jawjackin'

_A couple people that have been reading this have asked me if I have anything else published. For those of you wondering the same thing, I have good news: not long after my last chapter-post, I had a meeting with a local publisher about the novel I'm working on. Don't run out to the bookstore to reserve a copy just yet, I'm still in the editing process. I just wanted to let you guys know that I am doing more than fanfic -- though I am having a grand time doing this -- and maybe in a year or two, I'll have a real honest-to-God book to promote. For now, if you want to read more by me, click on my profile for a link to my short little Star Wars fic -- it's more humorous than this one, so it'll be a nice break for you...but you have to read this installment first! No slacking off!_

**5: LATE-NIGHT JAWJACKIN'**

The next time Jonah found himself in the Red Dog Saloon, he noticed a drastic change in the clientele: he knew everyone there. Some were friends, most were enemies, and nearly all of them were long dead and gone. He spied Lewis dealing out a hand of poker to Reinhold Bornsten, Stiletta's father and the man responsible for dragging Jonah into the future. On either side of Bornsten sat Quentin Turnbull, the rich Virginian that blamed the gunfighter for the death of his beloved son, and El Papagayo, a Mexican bandito who had crossed paths with Hex more times than he liked to remember. Solomon, Turnbull's faithful black manservant, tended the bar, pouring drinks for both Jonah's stuffed corpse and his father Woodson.

Accepting the impossible with the logic people possess only in dreams, Jonah sidled up to the bar. "Glad yuh could finally join us, son," his father said, clapping him on the back.

"Surprised they let him back in," the corpse said. "Damn near destroyed the place last time."

Jonah turned his head to either side, looking at the two of them in turn. "Weren't muh fault," he muttered, then pointed behind them to Bornsten. "_He's_ the one whut done it."

Turnbull shook his head as he picked up his cards. "Pay that man no mind, my dear Mr. Bornsten. He has never taken credit for a single wicked deed his entire life."

"Not to mention that he's crazier than a shithouse rat," Lewis said with a laugh. "Come on...cowboys in the 21st Century? He _must_ be nuts."

"Don't listen to 'em, son," the elder Hex told him, and pulled him close. The man reeked of alcohol, as always. "People like them is just jealous, yuh don't need 'em. Long as yuh got a bottle in one hand an' a stack o' coin in the other, the world kin go hang." He hoisted his glass as if in example.

Somewhere behind them, Jonah could hear a woman laughing. It sounded familiar, but as he turned around to look, his father tugged at him again. "Pay attention when Ah'm talkin', boy! Lord, yo're as bad as yer Ma, not listenin' tuh a damn word Ah say."

"Why should Ah?" Jonah asked. "Yo're a drunk."

"An' yuh ain't?"

Jonah pulled away from him. "Thet's dif'rent. Ah'm just...Ah kin stop right now, if'n Ah wanted."

The unseen woman's laughter rose higher. Once again, he tried to see who it was, but this time he was interrupted by Solomon. In his hand was a brandy glass filled with a black, viscous liquid, and he set it down in front of the gunfighter. "I was told tuh bring this tuh you special, Mistuh Hex," he said.

Jonah stared at the glass, his hands pressed flat against the bar on either side of it. The stuff was poison, he knew that as sure as he was breathing...but that didn't make him want it any less. He wanted to pick up the glass with both hands and guzzle it down, consequences be damned. He didn't care if it burned his throat and ate right through his stomach, he needed a drink so badly, just one mouthful, just one drop on his tongue.

With a trembling hand, he pushed the glass back towards Solomon, saying, "Yuh tell Turnbull Ah don't want a damn thing from him." His voice came out strained, the words a labor to form.

"Ain't from Mastuh Turnbull, suh," Solomon told him. "It was Mistuh Green that ordered it."

He was about to ask who the Hell Mister Green was when he heard the laughter again. Nothing stopped Jonah from looking this time, but when he caught sight of the source, he wished he hadn't.

In the corner of the saloon sat Green Lantern. His mask and ring were still intact, but he'd ditched the funny union suit in favor of a green chambray shirt and black trousers. In his lap was Stiletta, clad in a low-cut red dress and laughing, her long blond hair cascading over her bare shoulders. As if that wasn't bad enough, the Lantern was surrounded by other women from Jonah's past: Emmylou Hartley, Cassie Wainwright, Joanna Mosby, Adrian Sterling, his ex-wife Mei Ling...even White Fawn, the first girl he'd ever loved, and little Carolee, barely past seventeen and one of the last of Jonah's romantic conquests. They were all but throwing themselves at the feet of "Mr. Green", though Stiletta appeared to have the lion's share of his attention.

"Take yer damn hands off her!" Jonah yelled at him, leaving his place at the bar and advancing on the group with gritted teeth. A table sat between him and the Green Lantern, so he threw it to the side. Stiletta gasped and clung even tighter to the masked man. In fact, all of the women were backing away from Jonah.

"Don't worry, ladies," Lantern said, "I won't let him hurt any of you ever again."

"The Hell yuh say. Yo're the threat 'round here, not me."

The Lantern eased Stiletta off his lap and stood. "Are you sure? You're the one that looks out of place," he said.

It was true: Hex was still dressed in his 2050 clothes, while even Lewis and Bornsten had traded their modern duds for less conspicuous attire. The former bounty hunter stuck out like a sore thumb.

"You don't belong in the future," Lantern continued, "and there's no way you can fit in again in the past. You may as well be dead."

From its spot at the bar, the corpse said, "Thet's whut Ah've been tryin' tuh tell him."

Jonah's head whipped around. "Shut up! All of yuh, just..." He started to turn back towards the masked man, and was greeted by a fist to the face. The man's ring collided with Hex's nose, breaking it on impact. He stumbled backward and ran into the bar.

"Get back out there, boy!" Woodson shouted. "Yo're makin' me ashamed tuh call yuh my son!"

"He couldn't stand up tuh a dead man," the corpse said, "so whut makes yuh think he kin lick one thet's livin'?"

"Butt out," Jonah gasped, trying to wipe away the blood gushing out of his nose. He balled his hands into fists and stepped forward.

"Fifty _pesos_ on the _hombre verde!" _El Papagayo said.

"One hundred Soames on Hex!" Bornsten countered.

"Of all the people tuh be on muh side..." Jonah growled, then swung at the Green Lantern. He managed to land a few blows, but it seemed like for every hit he made, good ol' Mr. Green followed up with three more, smiling as he did it. The ring cut up Hex with every blow, and his black shirt was soon soaked with his own blood. He exhausted himself to the point where he could barely lift his arms, but the masked man kept coming, not letting up until the gunfighter fell to the saloon floor. He tried to get back on his feet, but he felt empty, used up...dead.

Bornsten cursed and handed the Soames over to a laughing El Papagayo.

"You should have known better," Green Lantern told Hex. "You're just a relic. Why don't you crawl back to the warehouse and collect dust like the rest of the antiques?" He then turned away from Jonah and returned to the welcoming throng of women. Mei Ling produced a lacy handkerchief and wiped the blood from the Lantern's hands with a discreet smile.

"No...Ah won't let yuh take them from me, too..." Still sprawled on the floor, Jonah unholstered one of his guns and pointed it at the masked man.

Stiletta walked over to him and pulled the Magnum from his hand with barely any effort, saying, "Why don't you leave him alone, you bully?"

"But Ah...Ah'm doin' this fer yuh, sugar," Jonah said, "'cause Ah..."

"You what?"

_Ah love yuh._ The words refused to come out of his mouth, though, same as always. He'd tried to tell her at least a dozen times, but he always fell short. Once, he'd gotten the guts to ask if she loved _him,_ and she'd looked at him like...well, like he was crazy. Now it was too late. He'd lost her to the mystery man, the young stud. She turned her back on Jonah and went over to the Green Lantern, who greeted her with that damned smile of his. She gave him one back as she tucked the Magnum beneath the Lantern's belt, then steadied her hands on his shoulders so she could reach up and give him a long, lingering kiss...

_"NO!"_ Jonah hollered, loud enough to wake himself up from his own nightmare. He found himself curled up on the floor of his quarters, legs pulled to his chest and arms wrapped around the now-empty whiskey bottle. Jonah held it up in front of his face and stared at it, dazed. He had no memory of drinking it, though judging by the dampness of his shirt, more of it was probably _on_ him than _in _him. _Bad waste of good whiskey_, Jonah thought as he sat up, then peeled off the wet shirt and tossed it in the corner.

While he knew the dream hadn't been real, the feelings it had dredged up lingered on. The loss of control, the sense of abandonment...he hated it. Jonah wasn't the sort of man who was used to feeling helpless. There was _always_ a way out, even if it meant spilling a little of his own blood in the process. Problem was, he was fighting against Time itself...and it was winning, especially now that it had thrown a new obstacle in his path. "Green Lantern," Jonah muttered under his breath. "Whut kinda stupid name is _thet?" _The very thought of the man made the gunfighter grind his teeth. And knowing that this stranger was out there, possibly turning everyone against him...

Delusion or not, Jonah couldn't take that chance. He wouldn't let that bastard take away what little he still possessed without a fight. But that meant confronting the masked man for real. The voice of his stuffed and mounted corpse bubbled up in his brain: _He couldn't stand up tuh a dead man, so whut makes yuh think he kin lick one thet's livin'?_

"Got yuh in the end, though, didn't Ah?" Jonah said aloud, then stood up and walked over to the door. The lights in the hallway were dimmed, a power-conserving measure as most of the warehouse's residents slept. "Ripped yuh limb from limb, an' by God, Ah'll do the same tuh this Lantern fella if'n Ah have tuh."

* * *

When Hal Jordan saw the quarters he'd be sharing with Cutter, his first thought was that a Radio Shack must have exploded in the vicinity, and all the debris landed on that spot. Metal shelves bolted to the walls overflowed with small, half-dissected motors and unidentifiable parts. A plastic milk crate was engorged with circuit boards stacked vertically like old LPs. Wiring had been swept aside into corners and under the beds, where even more junk lurked like electronic dust bunnies. It didn't matter to Hal what the place looked like, though, so long as the mattress he was sleeping on was soft.

"How long do you think you'll be sticking around?" Cutter asked as they settled in for the night.

"Don't know. Guess it depends on how long it takes for me to find the help I need."

"You mean like your super-friends?"

"Yeah, like them," Hal said, "or whoever came after them." Before and during dinner, he'd pumped all the residents for information about any metas they may have been familiar with. He drew a fair share of blank looks, and the people who did understand what he was getting at usually couldn't come up with anything useful, or at least recent. In fact, for nearly all of them, Hal was the first superhero any of them had actually seen in the flesh, and certainly the only one they'd heard about post-war. There was, of course, the Batman in New York Stiletta had mentioned, but she'd never seen the man herself, and Jonah wasn't exactly someone he could talk to at the moment. _Still, it's a lead, _Hal thought, _though I doubt Bruce would be alive after all these years. Dick maybe, or even that Drake boy, but Bruce would be...what, eighty? Ninety? He certainly wouldn't be jumping off rooftops, even he's not that good._

Despite the funny look he got from Cutter, Hal kept on his whole uniform when he got into bed, boots and all. It was an old habit: so long as the mask was on, he was "on duty", which meant he stayed prepared. It didn't matter that his ring was dead, he was still a Green Lantern.

_Green Lantern_...he was still coming to grips with his reinstatement, and here he was, representing the Corps in a time when there may not _be_ a Corps. They'd only recently reformed, had they managed to weather the past half-century? And if so, why weren't they here, helping Earth recover from this nightmare? _Where are any of the heroes? _Hal thought as he lay there in the dark, the only sounds being a low-level hum of electrical current and Cutter's light snoring. _Someone has to be left, there were too many of us, all over the globe. _What bothered Hal the most was the fact that so many people had barely any recollection of superheroes _before_ the bombs dropped. What could have happened between his time and now that nearly all of them disappeared?

The questions followed Hal as he drifted into sleep, coloring his dreams in ambiguous shades of gray. He ran down the empty streets of Seattle, calling out names and receiving no answer. He'd catch reflections of his friends and colleagues in store windows, but be greeted with nothing when he turned around. His mind was so wrapped up in the images, it didn't even register when the cold metal nuzzled his cheek. The sharp click of a hammer being cocked, however, cut right through.

Hal's eyes snapped open, and he saw the shadowed figure of Jonah Hex standing over him, barechested and pointing a gun at the Green Lantern's face. He almost asked Hex how the man figured out where he'd been sleeping, then realized this was one of the most renowned bounty hunters of the Old West. He had his ways.

"Get up," Jonah told him, his voice barely above a whisper but still full of menace. It wasn't until then that Hal realized his hands were bound behind his back. Jonah had trussed him up while he was sleeping. Hal's eyes darted over to the other bed. Cutter was still asleep, paying no mind to the small amount of light pouring through the now-open door. Jonah somehow knew what Hal must have been thinking and growled, "Make one sound, an' yuh won't make another," then stepped back just enough to let the Green Lantern get out of bed. It was hard enough to do tied up, but to make matters worse, Hal's injured leg had stiffened up while he'd been sleeping. When he tried to stand, he let in a sharp hiss of breath through his teeth, which made Jonah shove the gun in his face again.

"My leg," Hal mouthed, stopping himself from adding "you idiot" to the end of that.

"Don't care," Jonah replied, then jerked the gunbarrel in the direction of the door. Hal limped out to the hallway, then Jonah grabbed him by the back of his collar and steered him down the hall to the gunfighter's room, shoving the Green Lantern down on the small metal-frame bed once inside. _Place smells like a cheap bar_, Hal thought as he sat up. The dents in the wall and the empty liquor bottles on the floor added to the ambience.

After he shut the door, Jonah picked up a battered metal chair off the floor and wedged it under the door handle. With him turned around like that, Hal could see a series of diagonal scars running down Jonah's back. It looked like the man had tried hugging a mountain lion. They were the most prominent ones among the dozens of scars all over his body, a testament to a hard, violent life lived without the benefit of Kevlar or plastic surgery. When he finished his task, he walked over to the bed and stood over Hal, staring down at him for a moment before pressing the gunbarrel under the Green Lantern's chin. "Hold still," he said, then reached up with his free hand towards the mask. Instinctively, Hal leaned back and turned his face away, but Jonah grabbed him by the hair. "Do yuh _want_ me tuh blow yer head off, boy? 'Cause Ah'll oblige yuh if'n yuh do."

"You don't need to take my mask off."

"Yes Ah do." He then let go of Jordan's hair and ripped off the mask in one fluid movement. Hal did his best to remain quiet, though the skin around his mask was still tender from the acid burn. "Ah don't cotton tuh folks whut wear masks," Jonah said, then held up the offending object. "Makes me a mite curious 'bout whut they're hidin'." He bent down close to the Lantern's face, his blue eyes meeting Hal's brown ones. "Fer whut it's worth, Ah know a couple masked men back home. They seem like alright fellas, but if'n Ah had muh druthers, Ah'd do the same damn thing tuh them." He straightened up, removed the gun from beneath Hal's chin, then tossed the mask at the Green Lantern's chest-symbol. It bounced off and landed on the floor. "Don't know why yuh'd want tuh wear such a damn silly outfit fer, anyhow."

"It goes with the job."

"Whut's thet? Head fool at the Mardi Gras?" Jonah leaned against the wall, the Magnum still pointed at Hal.

"Do you really want an answer, or is that rhetorical?"

"Reckon thet's why Ah dragged yer green butt down here: we're gonna play a little game of 'Question an' Answer'. Ah ask, yuh tell." He held up the gun, saying, "Ah've got one bullet in here. Yuh give a bad answer, Ah pull the trigger." He spun the cylinder. "If'n yuh win, yuh get tuh go on yer merry way. Yuh lose, an' Marya sets out one less plate fer Christmas dinner."

_Well, _Hal thought, _this happened a little sooner than I expected...but certainly not in the way I expected. _There was no choice but to go along with the game, though. He'd given the bindings a few tugs, but the knots were good and solid. The man knew how to truss somebody up, that was for sure. "Okay. Start asking your questions."

"Whut's yer name...an' Ah mean yer proper Christian name, not thet 'Green Lantern' nonsense."

"Pass," Hal answered, shaking his head.

"Yuh sure yuh don't want tuh reconsider?" Jonah stepped forward and put the gun to Hal's temple. "Cain't imagine why yuh wouldn't want tuh tell me, seein' as how we're supposed tuh be such good friends an' all."

After a long pause, he said, "Jordan...my name's Hal Jordan."

"There, was thet really so hard? Now how 'bout where yo're from?" He pressed the barrel harder against the Green Lantern's head. "Gonna try an' back outta thet?"

"No...but I assume by 'where', you also mean 'when'," Hal said. "Before I came here, I was in San Diego, California, the year 2005."

"Bad answer number one," Hex said, and pulled the trigger. Hal braced himself, and was greeted with the click of the hammer falling on an empty chamber. "One down, five tuh go. Want tuh change yer answer?"

"It's the truth, I swear."

"Then how come yuh said we met in 1878 afore? Cain't be from both places."

Hal tried to swallow, but his mouth was dry. "I'm from around the turn of the millennium, that's where I'm _supposed_ to be. When I met you, I had been sent there from my normal time."

Jonah pulled the gun back. "Fair enough...was it Bornsten?"

"I don't understand."

"Reinhold Bornsten. Everybody Ah've met thet got stuck here from somewheres else has thet bastard tuh thank fer it."

"No, it was an accident, plain and simple."

"Thet's one Hell of an accident."

The Green Lantern shrugged. "Happens more than you'd think."

"Ah try not tuh," Jonah said, and his eyes wandered away to the dark corners of the room. The man looked too gaunt in Hal's opinion, just a shadow of the Jonah Hex he'd met years ago (or _would_ meet, depending on your point of view). The fire was still there, but it was beginning to sputter out. "How long yuh been here?"

"Just arrived," Hal answered, then, tentatively, he asked, "What about you? How long ago did you come to this time?"

Jonah looked over at him. Hal expected to be told to be quiet, he wasn't allowed to ask questions, but instead, the gunfighter said, "It's been so damn long, Ah honestly don't remember no more." He ran a hand through his red hair. "Yuh never did answer muh first question, by the by."

"I told you, my name's..."

"Not thet." He gestured at Hal's attire. "Whut kinda job makes yuh wear green longjohns?"

"Oh." Hal thought for a moment, trying to couch the idea in terms a man from the 19th Century would understand. "I'm kind of like a Texas Ranger."

Jonah cocked an eyebrow. "Thet a fact? Never seen a Ranger run from a mob afore, even if all he had was his longjohns."

"Let's just say I was out of options...and ammo."

"There ain't no such thing as 'out of options'. Yuh just didn't try hard enough."

"Like you've been trying to hide in a bottle? Was that your only option?" The words spilled out of his mouth before he'd realized it.

"Thet's number two, now." Jonah pointed the gun at him again and pulled the trigger. _Click_. "Gettin' a little personal there, don't yuh think, stranger? Ah don't care whut yuh say, y'all don't know me."

"It's true, I don't," Hal answered. He knew he was putting his life on the line, but at the rate he was going, he'd be eating a bullet tonight no matter _what_ he said. "The Hex I knew wouldn't be afraid of an unarmed man, and if things got strange, he wouldn't get drunk and ignore it."

"Ah ain't no drunk!" Jonah grabbed the front of Hal's uniform and pulled him to his feet. "An' Ah sure as Hell ain't afraid of no baby-faced greenhorn."

"Then why did you tie me up? Why do you keep shoving a gun in my face?"

"'Cause Ah don't trust yuh. Yuh show up outta nowheres, actin' all cock o' the walk, claimin' we're old pals...Ah don't buy it, not one damn bit. Yuh may have all them convinced," he said, waving the Magnum towards the door, "but Ah think yo're holdin' something back, an' yuh ain't leavin' here 'til yuh tell me."

"I can't tell you everything."

The gunfighter scowled, then stuck the barrel under Hal's chin again. "Three."

"Don't!" _Click._

"Am Ah makin' yuh nervous, boy?"

Hal looked him dead in the eye. "Compared to what I've been through lately, this is a cakewalk," he answered. "I'm not holding back by choice, believe me. If I thought it was safe to tell you, I would, but...do you know what a paradox is?" When Jonah didn't respond, Hal said to him, "It's a contradiction, something that shouldn't be possible, but it is. That's what this is: you meeting me in this time _before_ we meet in 1878. Anything I tell you about what happened then could change it, even though it's _already_ happened for me."

"Thet don't make one damn bit of sense."

"It's the truth. The timestream is very sensitive. One tiny change can make a ripple in the flow of time, which can make even bigger ripples, and those can make huge rifts, causing the whole thing to collapse. Trust me, I've got what you could call 'hands-on experience' in this sort of thing."

"Seems awful convenient, clamin' yuh cain't tell me nothin' less'n Ah want the whole world tuh come crashin' down."

"I know how confusing the whole idea is to you, Hex, but you're going to have to believe me when I say that we were friends. It was a brief friendship, but you were there for me when I needed you, and that's what matters. I can tell you that the last...the _other_ time I saw you, I told you I was glad that I didn't have to count you as an enemy. I meant every word of it...but right now, you're making it _really_ hard for me to live up to those words."

The two of them stood there for the longest time, silent and unmoving. Hal prayed that he'd gotten through to Jonah, for both their sakes. Unfortunately, the bounty hunter's face gave no hint as to what his thoughts might be. After a few minutes, though, Jonah's eyes drifted down to the floor, and he quietly asked, "Was Ah old?"

"What?"

"When yuh saw me the other time...was Ah an old man?"

Hal suddenly remembered Stiletta's description of the "statue" they'd found. "No...God, no. You looked, well, about the same as you do now, I guess. Your hair was a bit shorter in the back, though," he said, noting that it was currently long enough to start brushing Hex's shoulders, "and you were wearing...I think it was an old Confederate uniform."

"Ah was?" Both Jonah's eyes and his voice brightened a little. "Don't josh me now, son."

"No joshing, promise."

Jonah fell quiet again for a moment. "Stiletta said...she said yuh don't know nothin' 'bout...'bout how Ah died." He pushed the gunbarrel harder under Jordan's chin, but not as hard as he'd done previously. "Tell the truth an' shame the Devil, now."

"I wish I had something to tell, but...I only knew you for one day, that's it."

"_One day? _How kin yuh call me a friend if' n yuh only knew me fer one damn day?"

"It was a Hell of a day."

The gunfighter said nothing, his eyes drifting away again. Hal began to see the same look of distress on the man's face that he'd witnessed earlier that day.

"Hex..."

"Quiet." Jordan heard the hammer cock back, but that was all. "Less'n yuh got something useful tuh say, don't open yer mouth."

"I do...but I'm afraid to say it with this pistol jammed beneath my jaw."

"Scared thet Ah might take offense?"

Hal paused. "Yes. Yes, I _am_ scared. Is that what you want to hear? There's a one-in-three chance that the next time you pull the trigger, you'll blow my brains out, so any rational man _would_ be scared."

Jonah looked at Hal with red-rimmed eyes, like he hadn't slept in years, then lowered the gun. "Fine. Speak yer piece."

He took a deep breath, then asked, "Do you care about Stiletta?"

The anger in Jonah's eyes was plain to see through the exhaustion. "Sonovabitch...Ah knew it..." He brought the Magnum back up to the Green Lantern's head so fast, he scraped the barrel against the man's cheek. "Yuh cain't have her!"

"I don't _want_ her, I just wanted you to take a look outside your own misery for a second," Jordan snapped, all too aware of the gun just inches from his face. "Maybe destroying yourself with booze makes you feel better, but it's hurting her, too. Trust me, I know what it's like to try and drink away your problems: when you sober up, they're still there, the people you love are suffering worse than you are, plus you've got the hangover to deal with." He was trying not to yell, but it wasn't easy. Jonah's behavior, his denial, was reminding Hal too much of his own bout with alcoholism. Even after he was given the ring, it took him a while to face up to the fact that he was responsible for a lot of his own problems, and that if he wanted things to get better, he had to dry up first. "I don't blame you for wanting to hide from all this. I'm only a half-century removed from this time, and the thought that this is where the world's headed makes me sick. And as far as that corpse goes..."

Jonah flinched at the word like it was a lash.

"As far as that goes," Hal continued, "you're gonna have to learn to live with it. Yes, it's horrible to think that you died in some undignified fashion, but let me tell you a little secret of life that I learned the hard way: people don't judge you by your last act as much as they do by the sum of all your years. _Everything_ counts, every grand deed and misdeed. Some people...some people will focus more on one than the other, sure, but that doesn't mean you should lie down and give up because things aren't going to turn out the way you wanted."

"Ah should kill yuh right now fer talkin' like thet tuh me," Jonah snarled.

"Then do it and get it over with, because if you're not going to listen to what I've got to say, I quit."

"Why yuh so all-fired concerned 'bout whut happens tuh me, anyhow?"

"Because Stiletta asked me to help an old friend," Hal told him, "and because if you don't get your head on straight again, I might die." He let that hang there for a moment before going on. "When I met you in 1878, I was so messed up, I couldn't even remember my own name. If you hadn't been there to rescue me, I probably wouldn't be standing here right now." He shook his head. "I shouldn't be telling you this, it could screw up the whole timeline."

The gunfighter regarded him for a moment, then said, "So yo're only tryin' tuh save muh neck so's Ah kin save yorn somewheres down the line."

"Not completely, but yeah, that is part of it. The other part is because not too long ago, I was where you are. I'd lost nearly everything that I cared about, and I thought there was no one that gave a damn about my pain, so I...I made some bad decisions. They made sense to me at the time, but..." Now it was Hal's turn to look away. "When my friends tried to tell me I was doing the wrong thing, I refused to listen, and it ruined my life. You wouldn't believe what I went through to get back to where I am today." He looked at Hex again and said, "There's people here that are worried about you, Jonah, and they want to help you, but you won't let them. I can understand why you don't trust me, and that's fine, but trust _them_, before you do something you regret."

Eyes still red, mouth pressed in a hard, thin line, Jonah drew in a long, slow breath, then let it out and said, "Ah've already got a long list of regrets, but it started long afore Ah got here." He then let go of the Green Lantern. "Ah don't agree with everything yuh said, an' Ah sure as Hell don't _believe _all of it, but Ah think yo're doin' yer best tuh be straight with me. Ah'll admit, Ah'm a mite impressed y'all told me off like thet, whut with me havin' a gun at yer head an' all. Yuh don't have muh full trust yet, but yuh got muh respect, Jordan."

"Does that respect include you untying me?"

"Don't rush me, son." Jonah holstered his gun, walked over to where his coat lay, then pulled out a knife from somewhere within. "Just 'cause Ah'm doin' this don't mean thet Ah'm turnin' muh back on yuh. If'n yuh cross me, Ah'll come down on yuh so hard, yuh won't know yo're dead 'til yuh've been in Hell fer an hour." With that, he reached behind Hal and cut the restraints.

"Thanks...and you won't be sorry, I promise." The Green Lantern rubbed his sore wrists, then bent down and picked up his mask off the floor. "I'm just glad we reached an understanding before you finally hit that bullet."

"Nothin' tuh worry 'bout there," Hex said as he reloaded the Magnum. "Looks like Ah forgot tuh put a bullet back in the gun after Ah emptied the cylinder."

"You..._what?" _Hal stared at the gunfighter. "You were threatening me with an _empty gun?"_

"If'n Ah was gonna kill yuh outright, Ah would've slipped muh Bowie 'tween yer ribs while yuh was sleepin'. Nice, quiet death. Wanted tuh be sure yuh was a skunk afore Ah went an' did something like thet, though. Ah ain't the heartless bastard some folks think Ah am." He clicked the now-loaded cylinder shut with a smile. "Ah'll remember next time."

"I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Hex, you're a menace."


	6. The Cowboy and the Hero Go to Town

_Before we get on with the next chapter, I want to congratulate Markmark261 for being the first to notice that I named the warehouse complex for T.M. Maple. For you young'uns out there, "The Mad Maple" was a common sight in the old DC lettercolumns, seeming to be a reader of everything out there, including Jonah Hex (he even got the last word in the final issue of HEX, writing a letter that bordered on eulogy for the character). As I was starting this fic, I heard that Maple had passed away a few years ago, so I named the place in his honor. Good work, Markmark, your No-Prize is in the mail!_

**6: THE COWBOY AND THE HERO GO TO TOWN**

Sobriety, in Jonah's opinion, was highly overrated. He saw nothing wrong with taking a nip or two every so often, but after his little sit-down with Hal, even he had to admit that perhaps he'd slipped too deeply into his cups. He promised to cut back, but both Stiletta and Green Lantern told him that wasn't good enough, it was either all or nothing. Jonah felt they were being rather extreme. "Y'all sound like this temperance woman whut got a hold of me once," he told them. "If'n yuh start thumpin' a Bible at me, Ah'm leavin'." They informed him that wasn't an option, either.

During his first day on the wagon, the gunfighter was watched closer than a fox circling a henhouse. The only time they let him be alone was when he answered the call of nature, and even then somebody stood outside the bathroom door. By the end of the day, he was ready to kill for both some privacy and a stiff drink, and the fact that he was beginning to feel sick as a dog didn't help his mood. Hal noticed Jonah's discomfort, and told him it was from something called "the dee-tees". "I went through the same thing when I dried up," Hal said as the two of them sat in the Hub, each of them nursing a cup of weak coffee. "Figure it's your body's way of getting even for trying to kill your liver."

Though he was suffering, Jonah found the man's frankness a comfort. It made Hal more human to him, not just some strange relic from a past that he hadn't even experienced yet. "Yuh don't strike me as the sort of fella thet would drink."

"The best alcoholics don't look the part. That's how they get away with it. I wasn't a slobbering, fall-down drunk, but I did enough to land up in jail on a drunk-driving charge." He stared down at his cup. "Crippled one of my friends, nearly killed my brother...and yet I still managed to get this." Hal brought up his ring hand. "God has a strange sense of humor."

"Ah've noticed thet," Jonah said, then gestured about them. "Seems the best way tuh explain all this."

"This wasn't God, just men...very stupid, short-sighted men. I thought we'd finally gotten out of the shadow of nuclear war in my time, but it certainly doesn't look that way. I just wonder what happened to all of us that we couldn't stop it."

"Hell, son, Ah wasn't even here fer thet."

"No, I didn't mean you and me, I meant the other heroes." Hal had explained earlier about all the other masked men that used to exist back at the turn of the millennium. To Jonah it all sounded like hogwash. Sure, he'd seen a few odd things himself since coming to this time, but the sort of people Green Lantern claimed to know didn't even sound like real folks. He reasoned it away as he did most of the strangeness he'd encountered in "modern" society: somewhere between 1875 and 2050, everyone had gone completely insane. "There's no way they would have all sat back and let this happen," Hal continued, "not to mention that apparently no one has shown their face since then."

"There was thet Bat-fella," Jonah said, "but Ah think he's dead."

"Okay, one guy out of thousands. What about the rest?"

"They're _yer_ friends, why do yuh keep askin' _me?"_

"Well, isn't this your field of expertise? Finding people?"

Jonah looked at the man for a moment, then turned away. "Thet ain't whut Ah do no more. Back home, Ah'd do yuh fine, but here...yuh don't want some broken-down old man helpin' yuh. Ah wouldn't do yuh one lick of good."

"Why not? You've been here for quite a while, you know how things work. I don't even know the name of the nearest town."

"Breyersville...but there ain't nobody there worth talkin' tuh." Hex thought for a moment, then said, "Best place tuh start is the Crystal Palace, if'n yuh got money tuh spare...cost yuh twenty Soames just tuh set foot in the place. Then there's Freepoint a few miles past thet, an' River's End...lots of folks go through there all the time. An' if'n yuh don't mind hoofin' it fer a couple days, yuh kin..." He stopped. "Whut's so damn funny?"

"Nothing," Hal replied, a sly grin on his face.

"Yuh ain't gonna get nowheres if'n yuh don't take this serious. Don't yuh know there's folks'll kill yuh soon's they look at yuh 'round these parts? Thet hole in yer leg is proof of thet. They don't give a damn 'bout yer name or yer fancy ring, all's they see is easy pickin's." He took a sip of coffee, then said, "Ah'd best come along an' watch yer back when yuh go lookin' fer these friends of yers, otherwise yuh'll be buzzard chow in no time flat."

Still smiling, Hal said, "That's very generous of you, Hex."

"An' yuh'd best appreciate thet generosity, 'cause yo're gonna have tuh depend on it awful heavy." Jonah pointed a finger at him. "Yuh ain't got a gun, a ride, or one red cent tuh yer name, so muh sense of Christian charity is all yuh got goin' fer yuh at the moment."

"So, do you want to start tomorrow morning?"

"If'n Ah ain't sickin' up muh guts, sure thing."

* * *

True to his word, the Green Lantern found Jonah in the Hub the next morning, ready to hit the road. He looked a bit rough around the edges, but he was sober, and that was the important thing. Right after Hal managed to put some breakfast in his belly, the gunfighter came up and shoved a bundle into his hands. "Put this on," Jonah said, "so's yuh don't look like a fool in his underwear while we're out there." Hal unfolded it and saw it was a long black coat, made out of the same leather-like material as Jonah's. There was also some cold-weather headgear and goggles. "Ah managed tuh borrow this fer yuh, too," he added, and pulled out a .45 automatic pistol. "Red told me this is from 'bout the same time as yuh are, so yuh should know it well enough." 

"Thanks," Hal said as he slipped the coat on, "but you can keep the gun. That's not my style."

"This ain't 'bout style, it's fer protection."

"I don't use guns...and I don't kill."

"Any owlhoots we run into out on the trail ain't gonna know thet." He grabbed Hal's hand and slapped the pistol into it. "If'n there's trouble, just take the damn thing out an' shoot over their heads. Yuh _do_ know how tuh fire a gun, don't yuh?"

Reluctantly, Hal put the gun in his coat pocket. He had no intention of using it, but Jonah did have a point: just showing that he was armed might be enough to deter trouble.

The next stop was the motor pool, just off to the left of the main entrance. As they stepped into the makeshift garage, their ears were assaulted with the sound of the Rolling Stones blaring full-blast from a stereo on one of the workbenches. Jonah rolled his eyes as Mick Jagger declared that, after nearly a century, he still couldn't get any satisfaction. Hal saw the gunfighter's sour look out of the corner of his eye and asked, "Not that crazy about the Stones?"

"Ah'd stone the jaspers muhself if'n Ah could," he answered. "Sounds like a bull moose 'bout tuh rupture itself." They headed over to a row of cycles standing at the other end of the garage, the one Hal had ridden to the complex among them. "Looks like yuh picked a good one," Jonah said as he checked it out, "ain't nowhere near as beat-up as muh own."

"I can't picture you tooling around on a motorcycle."

"Ain't by choice...the future seems tuh be a mite short on horses." He toggled some switches, and the machine fired up.

"Hey, hands off!" Lewis slid out from under a hulking armored vehicle not far away. "I'm stripping that thing for parts."

"Well, muh eyesight must be gettin' poor in muh old age," Jonah replied, "'cause it looks tuh me like yo're a-crawlin' 'round under thet metal armadillo."

"Don't play stupid, you know what I meant." The mechanic walked over just as the Stones began telling whomever cared that Jumping Jack Flash was a gas gas gas. "I'm gonna take the power cells out of this and slap them in the crawler," he told them, killing the ignition on the bike, "the old ones are almost burned out."

"Do you have another bike to spare, then?" Hal asked.

"What for? You two gonna run off and play Butch and Sundance?"

"You got it. I'm Newman, he's Redford." He nodded towards Hex. "If you really must know, we're going to check with the locals about where my colleagues might be."

"Oh, my mistake," Lewis said, "today's Superhero Day."

"Thet's right," Jonah told him, "an' if'n we find any of 'em today, we're gonna bring 'em back here so's they kin thank yuh personally fer givin' us such a damn hard time." He flashed a grin at the mechanic that would make the Devil cringe. "Ah hear tell some of 'em kin rip through steel like it's tissue paper...wonder whut they could do tuh yer dirty hide."

While he may not have believed that the Green Lantern was truly a superhero, he did find Hex's smile disturbing enough to sputter out, "The red one over there's available."

"Thank yuh kindly," Jonah said, and tipped a nonexistent hat in Lewis's direction. The two men grabbed their rides for the day and wheeled them out of the warehouse. The snow had quit for the time being, but the sky still had a dead gray look to it. "Reckon we kin hold off on the headgear fer awhile," the gunfighter told Hal, and stashed his own on the cycle. "The minute yuh feel it stingin', though, put it on. Don't want tuh spoil yer pretty-boy looks." He hopped on board and revved the engine, a different sort of grin on his face now. While he may have said he preferred horses, it was obvious that Jonah got a kick out of riding something faster than the locomotives in his day.

Hal started up his bike and revved it as well. "You ready to roll, Sundance?" he yelled over the noise of the engines.

Jonah looked over at Hal, puzzled. "Ah thought Ah was Redford!" he yelled back.

"It's the same...never mind!" He waved a hand in a gesture of dismissal, and the two of them sped off, snow spraying off their back tires.

* * *

They reached the first settlement that Jonah deemed worth their trouble by eleven in the morning. Freepoint wasn't pretty by any stretch of the imagination, but the ramshackle buildings and rows of converted trailers did well enough for the residents, and unlike Crystal Palace, they wouldn't charge for the privilege of walking through their streets. The two men drew their fair share of looks as they made the rounds, asking questions of anyone that seemed willing to talk to a clean-cut gentleman in a mask and a rough-looking man with a face only a mother could love. Unfortunately, most of the answers they received were the same as the ones Hal got from Stiletta and her friends: no one had seen a meta since the war, few to none were known before the war, and the names Green Lantern rattled off, including his own, jogged no memories. 

After two hours with no luck, they declared the place a loss and headed to the next town five miles away, a hole in the wall laughingly called New Eden. Prospects didn't improve any there, though Hal did spot some people clustered around a burning oil drum that gave off the same reddish-pink smoke he'd seen in the parking garage. When he asked Jonah about it, the gunfighter made a face and muttered, "Lotus-eaters."

Hal smirked, saying, "I didn't know you read Greek mythology."

"Whut do Greeks got tuh do with anything?" He waved a hand at the small crowd. "They burn little bricks of the stuff an' suck up the smoke. Makes 'em act all moony, like opium, only they don't even got the sense tuh do it in a den, they just drag it out into the open." Jonah lit a cigarette and blew smoke their way, as if to counteract the strange drug's effects. "Cain't get drunk like civilized folk do."

The more hours that passed, the more Hal's discouragement grew. They had traveled countless miles and had nothing to show for it but sore backs from all that riding. As they headed back to their cycles after hitting yet another dead end in another shantytown, Hal expressed his concerns to Jonah. "Maybe we're going about this wrong, or just asking the wrong questions. We should have found out _something_ by now."

"We're followin' a cold trail, Jordan. Thet's the worst sort tuh follow. All's we kin do right now is keep siftin' through all the worthless information 'til we find a good solid lead, then we kin jump on thet an' hope it pans out."

Hal sat down on his bike, saying, "Yeah, I know, but this is frustrating. I'm about ready to call it quits for the day."

"C'mon, one more stop, then we'll head back tuh Maple."

"Are you really that eager to get rid of me?"

"Yes."

Jordan was knocked speechless for a moment. "I thought we'd settled all this."

"Ah've decided tuh tolerate yuh, Ah never said we was best buddies now. The sooner Ah kin foist yuh off on some of yer fellow masked men, the happier Ah'll be." He closed his eyes and rubbed them with his fingers. "Yuh have no idea how much it troubles me just tuh _look_ at yuh sometimes. Ah don't care thet yuh've got this idea in yer head thet we're pals...maybe when we meet the other time we will be, but right now yo're just a bad dream Ah cain't shake."

"I'm sorry you feel that way, Hex. I hope you'll change your mind when we do find my colleagues, because if they can help me get back to my proper time, then they might be able to..."

"Don't start."

"Start what?"

"Makin' promises. Ah don't want tuh hear 'em, 'specially 'bout thet." Jonah leveled his gaze at him and said, "Ah've missed muh chance tuh go home twice now. Both times Ah got muh hopes up only tuh have 'em crash down like one of them newfangled flyin' machines. So don't go an' build 'em up again, Ah don't think muh heart kin take the strain a third time."

Green Lantern fell silent for a while, looking out over the sprawling, snow-covered expanse that lay before them, then said, "Okay, I won't bring it up anymore."

"Fine by me." Jonah straddled his own bike. "So, one more stop? River's End is only 'bout three or four miles thetaway." He waved a hand to the east.

"Sure." They fired up their rides, and Jonah led the way to River's End. As they neared the building, Hal let out a quick laugh. The gunfighter had told him that lots of people came to the place, and once he saw it, he realized why...or at least why they would still associate it as a fine source for goods and services. _The world comes to an end, _Hal thought, _and people still go to the freaking mall._

Most of the structure was intact, but parts of the exterior had been built upon, extending out to the mall's crumbling parking lot. That area had the air of a Turkish bazaar about it, with people standing out in the cold haggling over the price of whatever junk lay before them. Jonah skimmed the booths with a practiced eye, picking out the truly useful vendors from the crazies that would make up tales just to part the two men from what little money they had. But even the bounty hunter's experience couldn't produce information where there simply wasn't any, and they slowly worked their way inward to the mall proper. The interior shops looked much better than their outside counterparts, as did the people running them, but the higher quality didn't improve their prospects. "Looks like we've gone bust again," Jonah muttered as they neared the back end of the mall. "Yuh sure we're lookin' fer real people, Jordan?"

"Very funny." Hal surveyed the area, hands on hips. Some of the storefronts on that end had been converted into living quarters, with all sorts of people and their possessions crammed within. "Let's check with some of the folks down here before we take off," he said...then realized he was talking to himself. Jonah had disappeared. _Oh damn_, he thought as he turned around in a circle. _Did he decide to ditch me here?_ After a moment, he saw the gunfighter across the way, walking into one of the stores. In the display window was a hand-lettered sign:

_**GUNS + AMMO BUY SELL TRADE**_

"Like a kid spotting a toy store," he mused, then followed after him. Hal found him already engaged in conversation with the owner behind the counter, handing the man a bullet.

"Yuh got anything like thet?" Jonah asked.

"What sort of gun is this for?" The man held it up for a closer look. The brass casing was blackened with age.

"Colt .44 Dragoon...converted, of course."

"Are you high? I sell guns, not antiques." He tossed the bullet back at Hex, who snatched it out of the air. "Lay off the Lotus and come back when you've _really_ got business for me," he said, and began to turn away.

Jonah reached over the counter, grabbed the man by his shirt, and pulled him back. "Ah ain't in the mood fer sass. Show me whut yuh got, an' Ah'll tell yuh if'n we've got business."

"All right, all right! Jesus..." He shook loose, then rummaged under the counter for a moment. "I've got a box of odds and ends, maybe what you need is in there." He placed a metal box half-full of bullets in front of Jonah.

"I didn't know we were doing any shopping today," Hal said as Jonah began looking through the box.

"Place was here, figured Ah'd try."

"Good idea...think I'll do the same." He then said to the owner, "Mind answering a few questions for me?"

"Let me guess: you want musket balls."

Hal ignored the comment. "I'm looking for some people...the sort that would really stand out if you saw them. They used to call them metas: stronger than average, faster, some have extranormal powers. There were quite a few back around the turn of the millennium. I'm trying to locate some, find out if any survived the war."

"People like that don't exist around here," the man said, shaking his head. "You've seen too many movies."

"What about before the war? Did you ever hear about any of the old heroes?" Hal felt strange referring to himself and those like him as "old", but at this point in time, it was the proper context. "You should know Superman, at least."

He laughed. "Superman? That's a fairy tale. You may as well be looking for Rumpelstiltskin."

"He's not a fairy tale, he's a real person."

"If you say so, buddy...personally, I think you both need to cut down on the briqs." The man turned to Hex and said, "So are you buying or just wasting my time?"

Hal expected Jonah to punch the owner, but instead he held up five bullets, all roughly the same size as the one he'd showed the man earlier. "How much?"

"Two-and-a-half Soames."

Reaching into his coat, the gunfighter produced a small plastic container and shook out what looked to Hal like Alka-Seltzer tablets. Stiletta had told the Green Lantern before about the importance of Soames in current society. In a world where almost every water source was poison, the purifying tablets were worth more than gold, and had become the _de facto _currency. Jonah snapped one of them in half, then handed over the proper amount.

"Pleasure doing business with you...now scram." The owner jerked a thumb towards the door.

"Cain't imagine why folks ain't linin' up tuh come into this place," Jonah muttered as they left the shop. He gave the bullets in his hand one more look before tucking them in his pocket.

"I'm surprised you're still using your old guns," Hal said. He'd seen the Dragoons laying on the table in Jonah's room and recognized them immediately. "It's obviously not easy to find ammunition for them, so why do you keep bothering?"

"This is the first time Ah've gone lookin', actually. Didn't get them back 'til a month ago."

"You mean they were..."

"Yeah, they were," Jonah said, cutting him off before Hal could mention the corpse. "Funny thing is, they should be at the bottom of a lake 'bout two hunnert years back."

"A lake? What happened?"

"Ah was drunk." Jonah stopped walking and shoved his hands in his pockets, obviously embarrassed to admit what he'd done. "Drunk an' fed up with the world. Ah thought muh guns was the cause of all muh troubles, so Ah tossed 'em in a lake an' said good riddance. When Ah sobered up a week later, Ah thought 'bout tryin' tuh fish 'em out, but Ah wasn't 'bout tuh up an' drown muhself fer 'em, even if they was the nicest pair of guns Ah ever owned." Hal could see the confusion brewing in the gunfighter's eyes once again. "They should be nothin' but hunks o' rust by now, but there they were, right in muh hands."

"Maybe you had copies made after you...I mean..."

"Ah know whut yuh mean, an' Ah thought of thet, but Ah know thet it ain't so. When yuh trust yer life tuh something fer so long, yuh get tuh know every quirk 'bout it." He pointed at Hal's ring. "If'n yuh dropped thet in a pile of rings made tuh look just like it, wouldn't yuh be able tuh pick it out? Yuh kin spot it an' just _know_ thet it's yorn. Ah had them Dragoons fer _years_, Ah know every inch of 'em. Even the damn serial numbers is the same."

"Then you must have retrieved them somehow, I don't know. For sure, you had guns just like that when we met in..." He stopped, hearing a commotion coming from down the hall. Two men in biker leather ran out of one of the converted storefronts. With them was a two-year-old girl, beating at the man carrying her and screaming bloody murder. The bikers shoved away what little resistance they met and headed towards the nearest exit. Hal didn't know what was going on, but years of experience told him it couldn't be good. "Come on, we've got to try and head them off!" he shouted at Jonah, and began to run after them.

"Whut's this 'we' nonsense, Lantern? Yo're the damn hero." But after standing there a few seconds, he cursed under his breath and followed, easily overtaking the still-injured Jordan. The bikers were too far away for him to block their escape route, though, so Hex decided to improvise: he drew one of his guns and fired a shot at the pushbar on the door to the outside just as the unencumbered biker was reaching for it. The ricochet was more than enough to make the guy change his mind. Seeing the bounty hunter and the Green Lantern bearing down on them, the second biker turned tail and ran off in another direction. "Ah'll fetch the one with the girl," Jonah told Hal, "y'all kin have the other fella."

"Much obliged." Hal had discovered that when you spent a good deal of time around Jonah Hex, his speech pattern tended to rub off on you.

The first biker had only been momentarily stunned by the sudden gunshot, and was now pulling out his own weapon. _Time to even the odds_, Hal thought. He whipped off his coat, threw it in the biker's face, and forced him against the wall. He then grabbed the man's hand and twisted until the gun dropped to the ground. "Why do I doubt either of you is that girl's father?" Jordan said to him.

"Fuggoff, man," the biker spat back, tossing his head to push aside the coat. "What business is it of yours?"

"I'm the new mall security." He gave the biker's head a quick rap against the wall, hard enough to knock him out, then turned to a man standing nearby. "Watch this guy," Hal said, handing him the gun before heading off the way Jonah and the second biker had gone. He found them not far away, the would-be kidnapper sprawled out on the tiles with a bloody nose and the gunfighter kneeling down to gather up the sobbing child.

"M-Mama, hur' my Mama," the girl stuttered out as she buried her face in the folds of Jonah's coat. She was dressed in a ragged sweater three sizes too large and mismatched shoes.

Jonah smoothed down her hair with a surprisingly gentle touch. "Hush there, youngster, it's alright now." Balancing the girl in the crook of his arm, he stood up and said to Hal, "Yuh lost yer coat."

"The other guy looked like he needed it more." He gestured at the girl, saying, "I didn't know you had it in you."

"Ah have muh moments." Jonah looked down at her tear-streaked face. "Got a boy back home...ain't seen him since he was a month old, but Ah reckon he was 'bout her age when Ah came here."

"I'll bet he's a hellion on the playground." He reached out with a gloved hand and wiped away some of her tears.

The girl sniffled and lifted her head away from Jonah's chest to look at Hal. After a moment, her expression went from sadness to the sort of joy you only see on a child's face. "Lannern!" she cried out.

The two men stared at each other. "Did she just say..." Hal began, then stopped as the kid began to pull at the chest-symbol on his uniform.

"Geen Lannern!" she said the best her two-year-old vocabulary would allow.

"Out of the mouths of babes," Hex wondered aloud. The child began to wiggle in his arms, so he handed her off to Jordan. "Looks like yuh got yerself a new sweetheart."

"I guess so." He gagged as the girl locked her arms around his neck in a toddler death-grip, giggling and saying his name over and over. "Time to go find Mama," he said, and the three of them retraced their steps back to the storefront Hal had seen the bikers come out of. As they neared, a woman dressed just as haphazardly as the little girl ran up to them, her face bloodied and a bruise forming on her cheek.

"Oh my God, Merrissa," the woman said, pulling the girl from Hal's arms, "oh, my baby girl." She ignored the men as she rocked the child in her arms, the relief plain to see on her face.

"Are you all right, ma'am?" Hal asked.

She nodded, saying, "I'll be better if you tell me you killed those bastards. God knows what they were planning to do with her."

Paying no mind to her mother's thoughts of homicide, the girl pointed and said, "Mama, iss Geen Lannern!"

"No, sweetie, I told you, they're gone, all gone." Then she gave Hal a long look. "He does look a lot like the pictures, though."

"Pictures?" Jordan laid a hand on the woman's arm. "Ma'am, what are you talking about?"

"It's nothing, just some old magazine Merrissa found. She asked me who was in the pictures, so I read her the names and made up stories to go with them."

"Can I see it?"

"Sure, I guess," she said, and led them into the converted store. They walked past piles of junk and old furniture to a small area where the mother and daughter lived. They had little more than a mattress and a few bags of belongings.

The girl fought her way out of her mother's arms, saying, "I wanna show 'im!" She ran over to the mattress and pulled out the magazine tucked beneath it, then held it up for Hal to see. "Don' like the ou'side pages, jus' the inside. Ou'side's all blucky."

Hal didn't know what "blucky" meant, but he figured it referred to the smears of dirt ingrained into the magazine cover. The image was still clear enough for him to recognize the Newstime logo, and beneath that..."Oh Jesus," he breathed, then took it from her and began to flip through it.

"Whut is it?" Jonah asked, leaning over Hal's shoulder for a better view.

The Green Lantern didn't answer, just kept flipping the pages and skimming paragraphs. After a couple minutes, he said to Hex, "How many Soames do you have left?"

"Ah don't know, maybe..."

"Whatever it is, give them half."

"_Whut? _Yuh lost yer mind, boy?"

"Give them half," he repeated, then knelt down in front of the girl. "I'm sorry, honey, I'm going to have to keep this. It's important."

The girl pulled at the magazine. "No, iss mine, I wanna keep it," she said.

"If I give you one of the pictures, can I have it?" he asked. "I'll try to have one of my friends bring it back when I'm done, I promise."

She thought about it, lower lip pouting out, then said quietly, "Okay."

Hal opened the magazine to a picture of himself, making sure the back of the page contained nothing more than an advertisement, then carefully tore it out. He handed it to her and gave her a kiss on her forehead. "Thank you, Merrissa," he said, then stood up and looked at the mother. "And thank you, ma'am. You've just helped me more than you'll ever realize."

The woman was stuffing the Soames into her pocket. "No problem...come by next week and I'll have even more magazines for you."

"This one will do fine," he told her, then turned to walk back out into the mall, the gunfighter right behind.

"Yuh mind tellin' me why Ah gave thet gal eighteen Soames fer an old periodical?" Jonah asked once they were out of earshot.

Still walking, Hal said, "Have you ever heard of a place called Coast City?"

"Cain't say thet Ah have."

"It's in California. I spent most of my life there. A few years ago...to _me_, it was a few years ago...an alien warlord named Mongul came to Earth and wiped out the entire city, killed millions of people in a bid to take over the planet. I wasn't there to stop him from destroying Coast City, but I was able to take him out before he could finish with his plan. Broke my arm, tore up my knee, but I didn't let up until I was sure he couldn't hurt anyone else."

"Whut's all thet got tuh do with anything?"

He stopped now and handed the magazine at Jonah. Beneath decades of grime, the gunfighter saw the Newstime banner running across the top, and the phrase "One Year Later" at the bottom of the cover. Between the two was a picture of a slender tower with a memorial flame burning near its tip, and five statues ringing its base. The faces on four of the statues were unfamiliar, but Jonah had come to know the fifth one very well the past few days.

"According to this," Green Lantern said, "Mongul killed me as well."


	7. A Moment of Clarity

_A bit of forewarning: some of the ideas I suggest in this chapter may tick off some people. Or they may not. Maybe I'm being paranoid. Either way, let me finish telling you the whole story before you pass final judgment and send me angry e-mails. I swear, it all works._

**7: A MOMENT OF CLARITY**

"Alright, Jordan, explain all this nonsense tuh me, and make sure yuh chew it fine so's Ah kin understand it."

After retrieving Hal's coat from the still-unconscious biker, the two men found what passed for a food court near the center of the mall and grabbed a secluded table where they could hash things out. They received a few dirty looks from some of the vendors for taking up space without buying anything, but the look Hex gave them back was dirtier, and they were soon left in peace. They sat across from each other at the small table, the magazine laying between them. "You remember the year I told you I came from?" Hal said, then tapped the cover's upper corner, where the date was printed. "This was published on the one-year anniversary of Coast City's destruction. That event happened _three_ years before I came here...it's a time I've already lived through."

"Ah got thet much straight. Whut Ah don't understand is why whut yuh said happened back then don't match up with whut this says." He tapped the cover himself now. "Is this one of them paradox things yuh was talkin' 'bout?"

"Sort of. What I was referring to before has to do with changing what happened in the past in a catastrophic way, one that makes the timeline unravel. But this...the flow of time is very strange, Jonah. In addition to what we think of as 'normal' reality, there's all these 'possible' realities lying just beneath the surface...the way things might have been if events happened in a different order, or not at all in some cases."

"Yuh lost me...sounds like yo're sayin' things happen more'n once." He pulled out a pack of cigarettes and shook one out.

"The simplest way to explain it is that, for every decision you make in life, you make the opposite one in another reality. Let's say you come to a fork in the road: in one reality you go left, in the other you go right. Everything after that is different in both realities, because different things will happen to you depending on the direction you go." Jordan held up a hand. "Not every decision you make is that reality-altering, of course, but some little things do effect the universe in ways you can't imagine. It's like a snowball effect."

Jonah had been in the process of snapping off the cigarette filter when Hal said that. The gunfighter now sat there, looking at the two halves. He was far from stupid, but he did have difficulty with concepts that weren't tangible. It had taken him a day or two to get his head around time travel, and the incident with the corpse...well, he was still wrestling with that one. Now he had to deal with the notion of reality being multiple-choice. He placed the halves next to each other on the table so they looked like a whole cigarette again. "Everything starts off normal," he said aloud, more to himself than to Hal, "then something happens thet could go two ways...maybe three or four ways...so it splits off." He pushed the two halves around so they now lay side-by-side. "Everything keeps goin' on like afore, only now there's two of everything...an' nobody notices?" The last part he directed at the Green Lantern.

"Most normal people don't, no...which is good. It helps them stay sane."

"So things always been screwed up like this? Is there someplace where the South won the War?"

"Yeah, probably." Hal did his best to not laugh when Jonah's eyes almost bugged out of his head. "There's probably also a world where the Civil War never happened, or where America as we know it never even existed...just about everything that _could_ happen _has_ happened in another reality. And this," he said, picking up the magazine, "is one of those other realities."

"By which yuh mean it ain't yorn." Hex lit his cigarette-cum-visual aid. "How the Hell did yuh end up here, then? Ah thought yuh just got tossed forward in time like me."

"So did I, but the blast that knocked me here was mainly made up of a cosmic energy source, one that Dr. Steveling said existed _everywhere_. I'll bet it passes straight through all the alternate realities, too. I just slipped right through and didn't notice...and if we hadn't found this, I probably would have _never_ noticed since I ended up a few decades ahead of where I started."

"Lucky you. So how's this place different from where y'all came from...other than the fact thet yo're dead, of course."

"I wish that was all. Like I told you before, Mongul was trying to take over Earth...him and a cyborg that was impersonating Superman. They'd built a massive engine on the ruins of the city, and Mongul was about to turn it on and knock the planet out of orbit when I intervened. The real Superman and the others were working on taking down the cyborg and disabling the engine, so it was just the two of us duking it out. That monster almost had me at one point: I was flat-out on a catwalk, just totally spent. He raised his fist for a killing blow, but I managed to roll out of the way at the last moment, bought myself enough time to get my second wind so I could get up again and cream him." He looked down at the cover and the picture of the memorial. "It was just a fleeting moment. If I'd moved one second later, Mongul probably would have crushed my skull into powder...and I almost let him, he'd knocked me so low."

"Yuh didn't, though, yuh got up an' finished the job. But this other Hal Jordan..."

"One damn second, that's all it would have took. With me out of the way, Mongul would have gone on with activating the engine. By that time, the others had probably rendered it inoperable, but the power source would still be intact: pure kryptonite. Maybe he saw that he couldn't win, so he detonated the engine core just so he'd have the satisfaction of wiping out those who had ruined his plan." Hal traced a finger over the statue faces, naming them in turn. "Supergirl, Steel, Superboy...they were standing right outside the core chamber when I found them after the fight, so they were probably there when it went off, and Superman...he was in the heart of the thing, along with the cyborg and Eradicator. I'm just speculating of course: no one survived the final blast that wiped out the last of Mongul's complex according to this, so nobody knows what exactly happened. They couldn't even do a full investigation of the wreckage, the whole area was so hot from radiation."

"Superman's one of the fellas yuh've been askin' around fer," Jonah said. "Yuh called him one of the 'big guns'."

"The biggest. I figured if any of the heroes could last through a nuclear war, Superman would make it for sure," Hal said, "or at the very least, people would remember his name. He went everywhere, from one end of the globe to the other." He opened the magazine to a random page. It showed a dark-haired, muscled man in a red and blue outfit soaring across the sky just as easy as you please, a red cape spread out behind him like wings.

Hex recalled seeing something quite like that a few months back, but he'd written it off as a hallucination caused by too much rotgut. _'Sides, it was here an' gone afore Ah knew it, _he thought. _Maybe it was just some odd little hiccup in time like whut brought Lantern here,_ _no point in gettin' the fella's hopes up fer nothin'. _"The boy an' girl...they his kids or something?" he asked.

"No, just heroes that looked up to him, so they wore his symbol as a kind of tribute. Same with Steel. I suppose we all wanted to emulate him."

"Sounds like wantin' tuh be like him weren't enough tuh carry 'em through, though. Ah take it in yer time, they all made it out safe an' sound?"

He nodded. "We were all banged up to some degree or another, but yeah, everybody walked away intact. Hooray for the good guys. But in this timeline...remember I said that someone had been impersonating Superman? That same man had talked the government into staying away from the ruins of Coast City, then sent the Justice League on a wild goose chase across the solar system, all to make sure they wouldn't interfere with Mongul's plan. As far as they all knew, he _was_ Superman, so why wouldn't they believe him? By the time people realized they'd been duped, it was too late, we were all dead, and they didn't have a clue as to why. According to one of articles in here, the public thinks Eradicator was one of the bad guys...and some people still think the cyborg was the real Superman." Hal flipped ahead a few pages, saying, "All this confusion didn't help the League's reputation, either. There's another piece in here mentioning that the government forced the League to disband a couple months earlier due to 'lack of trust', probably because the heroes fell for the ruse just like everyone else."

"An' without yer 'big gun' tuh back 'em up, they didn't have a leg tuh stand on." He thought of all his fellow Confederates that were so quick to brand him a traitor after the Fort Charlotte Massacre, then said, "All them regular folks wanted somebody tuh pay fer whut happened, an' all yuh masked men was just convenient scapegoats, seein' as how the real skunks thet did all the damage was already dead."

"That's sounds about right, unfortunately. There was a similar uproar during the 1950s, I think, due to the Red Scare. The government called the members of the Justice Society Communist sympathizers and wanted them to publicly reveal their identities. They all retired or went into hiding rather than comply, and there were no superheroes operating in the public eye for decades until...well, until Superman. If the pattern repeated again in the modern era, and all the heroes of my time went underground...my God, do you know how much chaos that would bring? In just the past three years, there's been so many global threats that only..." Hal let the sentence trail off, his face becoming pale.

"Whut's wrong?" Jonah asked. The look on the Green Lantern's face was disturbing, like the man had seen the Devil himself. "Yuh still with me, son?"

His voice barely audible, Hal managed to form one word: "Parallax."

"Come again?"

Jordan's eyes seemed to focus elsewhere as he spoke. "For years, I've been beating myself up for the loss of Coast City, wondering what I could have done differently, how my life would have turned out if I hadn't..." He stopped, pain flickering across his features for a moment. "I never thought things could turn out worse."

"This has tuh do with whut y'all was tellin' me the other night, don't it? The bad decisions." Hex tossed away the cigarette and leaned forward, elbows on the table. "Them gloves yuh wear ain't as white as they look, are they? All them folks died, an' yuh couldn't take it, so yuh went crazy...just like me."

Hal opened his mouth, but nothing came out at first. Then, slowly, he told the gunfighter, "It wasn't the same, I...something was...influencing me. I wasn't in control all the time. It let me think I was, but..." He drew in a shuddering breath. "I was afraid, and I didn't want anyone else to die, so I amassed this staggering power to the point where I could effect Time itself, and I tried to...restart everything. Just erase all the bad things that ever happened. I almost did, but my friends stopped me. For a moment, though, I touched the very fabric of the universe...who knows what sort of imprint I left on it once they made me let go?"

Jonah leaned back in his chair, thinking, _He's lyin', whut he's talkin' 'bout ain't possible_. Then again, if someone had come to him before he'd been dragged into the future and told him about a tenth of the things he'd seen here, or about moving through time in and of itself, he would have laughed it all off. _If'n it's true, though, then thet means... _"This is all yer fault: the world got blown tuh Hell an' gone in this time 'cause yuh weren't there tuh leave yer mark."

"I think so." Hal looked around at the people sitting nearby, oblivious to the two of them discussing matters of time and space. "In one reality I live and almost wipe out the universe in an attempt to save lives, and in another I die and unintentionally destroy civilization by my absence. Which is worse?"

"Apples an' oranges," Hex muttered. "Both of 'em are bad, just dif'rent types of it."

"I'm surprised you're so glib about this."

"Yuh want me tuh browbeat yuh over this or something? Ain't no point in it, the deed's done...both of 'em. Ah gather from the way y'all was talkin' the other night thet yuh've done yer penance fer the damage yuh caused back in yer own time, anyhow."

"'Penance' is the perfect word for it."

Jonah nodded. "Fair enough. Ah ain't one tuh hound a man once justice has been served, so yo're off the hook with me. As far as whut happened in this time goes, _yuh died_. How the Hell kin yuh punish a man fer dyin'? Kill him again?"

"I suppose you're right. It's just hard to think that what I did as Parallax was a _good_ thing in the long run."

"Like yuh said afore, God has a strange sense of humor." Jonah lit another cigarette and watched the Green Lantern through a haze of smoke. He saw the man in a different light now: not as high-and-mighty as he seemed at first glance, for sure. "So whut do we do now, Jordan? If'n all them long-underwear folk is gone, how we supposed tuh get yer green butt home?"

"All the heroes on Earth are gone...but there are others that weren't based on Earth," Hal told him, then pointed upwards.

Like a rube, Hex looked up and saw nothing but the mall's ceiling, then the meaning of what Hal said sunk in. "Oh, Ah've gotta see how yuh plan on pullin' this one off."

* * *

Truth be told, Hal didn't have much of a plan, just a sketchy idea. For a real, concrete plan, he was going to need some more help. Once they returned to the warehouse, him and Jonah located Stiletta, then went off to her quarters for privacy so they could fill her in on what the two of them had discovered. Wisely, Hal skipped the part about Parallax and the theory that he was the cause of the current state of the world ("Yuh start tellin' folks thet, they might decide tuh stretch yer neck fer yuh," Jonah reasoned). Like Hex, Stiletta was curious to find out how the Green Lantern was going to turn this situation into something useful. "That's great that some of your friends might be alive on Mars or wherever," she said, "but you're stuck on Earth. There's no way to reach them."

"Physically, no, and I figured as much, but I still might be able to contact them," Hal replied. "Back in my reality, the Green Lantern Corps had only recently reformed. There's only five of us, and we're starting almost from scratch. However, in this reality, I never...I mean, the incident that disbanded the Corps never happened. I could be wrong, but unless something disastrous occurred in the past half-century, the old Corps should still be operating out there. That's 3,600 different beings that can potentially respond to a distress call."

Jonah had commandeered the only chair in the room, and was sitting on it backwards, his arms folded over the backrest. "Whut do yuh plan on doin'? Gonna stick yer head out the window an' holler fer 'em?" he said.

"Close. There's an emergency frequency that the Corps set up for planets under our protection. If I can zero in on that, I can send a message through the relay network, and hopefully it'll get picked up by a Lantern in this sector. But for this to work, I need to find a long-range transmitter, something that can bounce a signal off a satellite and into space."

"Oh, I'm sure there's one in the storeroom," Stiletta joked, then turned dead serious. "Are you _crazy? _Where do you expect to find something like that?"

"Best bet is a military installation, but I doubt any survived the war."

"I think a few did, but they've more than likely been taken over by the Conglomerate or some other strong-arm group. I doubt they'd let us in to make a long-distance call."

"Yuh think any ol' military place would have one of these transmitters?" Jonah asked. "'Cause Ah know of one 'bout a hunnert miles south of here. It's in bad shape, but Ah don't think anybody's set up housekeepin' there yet."

"Hate to burst your bubble, cowboy," Stiletta answered, "but you're mistaken. There's no bases out that way."

"Yuh don't think Ah know whut Ah'm talkin' 'bout?" He turned towards her. "Remember me tellin' yuh 'bout how Ah ran into Harris? Him an' them other soldiers from Viet-whutever, we all stopped by this run-down compound set up by the Army fer research. Weren't on no maps, but one of the fellas said his Pa used tuh work there in his time."

"Vietnam? Is that what you mean?" Hal asked, thinking to himself, _He sure does get around, doesn't he?_

"Reckon thet is, but it ain't important. Point is, the place is there, an' it might have whut yuh need. 'Course, it weren't exactly the friendliest of places when we stopped by. There was these machines whut looked like big dogs a-runnin' 'round, almost took a few good nips outta muh hide. Ah think we wrecked 'em all, but if'n we're goin' there, Ah'd come loaded fer bear just in case."

"Sounds like a good idea. I'll leave that up to you, Hex: you scrounge up whatever ordnance you think will help," he said, then turned to Stiletta. "I'm not asking you to come along, but an extra set of hands might be useful."

"If you'd told me not to come, I would have made Hex shoot you until you changed your mind."

"Thank God you didn't have to resort to that. I want to leave early tomorrow morning, if possible. That should give us enough time to get supplies and equipment together." Hal rubbed a hand over his face. "Now all we have to worry about is whether or not the transmitter still works...if it's even there."

"Cutter should be able to help on that end, assuming you don't mind making this trio a quartet," Stiletta offered.

"Do you think he'll be up for it?"

She laughed. "It's a secret military base full of high-tech gizmos...we'll have to watch him all night to make sure he doesn't try and beat us there on foot."

* * *

The snow came back in full force the next day, the wind howling and shaking the walls of the warehouse. Despite that, the four of them agreed to head out into it, albeit with a different sort of transportation: the crawler was the biggest vehicle in the motor pool, and had been built to withstand all sorts of abuses, both physical and environmental. The four tank-like treads that propelled it could eat up the roughest terrain, and the armor plating was thick enough to deflect most weaponry. Lewis threw a fit when they came to borrow it, but somehow they managed to pry the vehicle out of his hands. Due to Hal's inexperience with the technology and Jonah's track record of crashing just about every big vehicle he'd ever attempted to pilot, Cutter and Stiletta strapped themselves into the front cabin to drive the monster. Not long after they'd gotten underway, Hal left his seat in the small passenger compartment and braced himself in the connecting doorway, both to get an idea of how the vehicle worked and to observe the lay of the land through the windshield.

Jonah had laid out directions on an old map of the area, one that had been modified to reflect the changes the nuclear war had wrought. That left him little to do but sit back and enjoy the ride, so he began to double-check the munitions he'd brought along, popping the clips on the guns to verify they were loaded. Once he was done, he started over again from the beginning. It was unnecessary, of course, but it kept him distracted from how much he wanted a drink at that moment. The thought of it had kept him up most of the night: just sneak down to the pantry, take one little nip, and sneak back. No one would know if he kept it small. Besides, it would help quiet the voices that always seemed to whisper in his ear as he tried to sleep.

But he'd made a promise to Stiletta: no booze, not one drop. He didn't want her to think of him as weak, so he did his best to ignore the dryness of his throat and concentrate on the task in front of him, methodically pulling the weapons one at a time out of the duffel bag between his feet and looking them over. When Hal came over and sat next to him, he didn't even lift his head.

"I don't think any of the guns have run off yet," Hal said, nudging the duffel with his boot.

Jonah grunted, put the pistol in his hand back with the others, then picked up a new one.

"Speaking of guns, I've been mulling over what you told me yesterday about your Dragoons," he continued, "and how you'd gotten rid of them back in your time."

"Rather not talk 'bout thet right now."

"You don't need to talk, just listen. I actually feel kind of stupid about this, it didn't occur to me until this morning," Jordan said, shaking his head. "You said they were with your corpse in the warehouse, and that you're _positive_ they're the same guns you'd ditched."

"Yuh callin' me a lair, boy?" Jonah growled, obviously annoyed.

"No, I didn't mean that at all. It's just that, in light of what we found out yesterday...well, I don't think that corpse you found is really you."

He dropped the gun back into the bag, then slowly turned to look at the Green Lantern. "Ah beg yer goddam pardon?"

"Hear me out, this is a bit complicated. Stiletta told me that her father pulled hundreds of people out of their respective timeframes and brought them here, including yourself. She also said that most of them died fighting these mockup battles he arranged for." Hal leaned closer. "Do you know how much damage to the timestream that would cause, so many people being yanked out of where they should be and never returning? One or two might not have too big an impact, but hundreds..."

Jonah remembered something he'd seen when escaping Bornsten's complex not long after he'd arrived. "He'd snatched up a mess of Yankees and stuck 'em in glass cages...reckon enough fer a whole battalion...an' he had a lot of other fellas in uniform, too," he said. "Thet many soldiers go missin', figure whatever war they're fightin' might turn out dif'rent without 'em."

"Exactly, which means by changing the past, you've just changed your own future. So how could you disrupt past events that much and have it _not_ effect you?"

After a moment, Hex answered, "Take 'em from _somebody else's _past...thet crafty sonovabitch, he wasn't just reaching backwards in time, he was veerin' off tuh the left, too!" He slammed his fist onto the seat. "Thet no-good, heartless...dammit, Ah'm glad we killed him!"

"Whoa, hey, calm down! He may of not even known he was crossing realities: sometimes despite our best efforts to screw things up, the universe manages to find a way to smooth out the anomalies. Maybe some sort of cosmic fail-safe kicked in and tried to disperse the damage he was causing. He's gone, and so's the equipment he used, so we'll never know for sure. No matter whether it was intentional or not, it means that _this_ reality isn't yours anymore than it's mine. We're _both_ visitors here."

"How kin yuh be so sure 'bout thet?"

"It's the Dragoons. Think about it: the Jonah Hex for _this_ reality never threw them in a lake. Maybe he never even got drunk like you did, and he probably never got pulled into the future as well. He kept those guns until he was an old man, died somehow, and the body got stuffed and mounted by someone who then displayed the Dragoons with the body. That's why they look like the same guns to you: until that split in reality, they _were_ the same guns."

_An' nobody notices, _Jonah thought, _not even me_. He turned away from Hal and stared straight ahead. The implications of what the man was telling him were still sinking in. For over a month, he'd been struggling with the knowledge that he'd someday become nothing more than a carnival attraction, robbed of any sort of dignity or respect, and that there was no way to stop it since it had already happened. _But if'n this ain't the same world Ah come from, then maybe it won't happen tuh me. It might, but it might not...fifty-fifty odds, same as everybody else. _Suddenly, Jonah felt like a weight had been cut away from his heart. "Ah ain't dead," he gasped under his breath. When he'd said that on other occasions, it was to calm himself down, to reassure himself that what he'd seen in that dusty storeroom hadn't come true yet. Now he said it with a conviction he could never muster before. "Ah ain't dead!" he shouted, pumping his fists into the air and laughing. "Ah beat it, yuh ugly bastard! Ah ain't gonna end up like yuh! _Ha ha!"_

From the co-pilot seat up front, Stiletta poked her head into the passenger compartment. "What are you guys doing back there?"

"We're havin' a wake," the gunfighter answered, a huge grin on his face. "Some jasper named Jonah Hex up an' died, but not this one!"

"What are you talking about?"

"Lantern thinks Ah got bounced up an' over here like he did." Hex got up from his seat and went over to hers. "If'n it's true, thet means Ah ain't gonna end up some corpse in an godawful costume! Thet's just a maybe!" he said, laughing again. "Ah could die tomorrow, or not 'til Ah'm a hunnert...but Ah'm gonna do muh damnedest tuh outlive Methuselah!"

"Oh my God, are you serious?" She looked from him to the Green Lantern and back again. "Oh my God," she repeated, then threw her arms around Jonah, laughing herself now. He returned the gesture in kind, almost lifting her out of her seat. Cutter complained that it was hard to drive with both of them carrying on like that right next to him, but neither of them listened.

* * *

About a half-hour later, the crawler passed the remains of a fence that marked the perimeter of the base. Not much was left standing aside from a couple of sagging hangers and a nondescript two-story building. "It may not look like much," Jonah remarked, "but some of the corridors seemed tuh go down awful deep. Them critters Ah told yuh 'bout didn't make us feel real welcome, though, so we didn't poke 'round here too long."

They drove the vehicle into one of the hangers, then disembarked, guns at the ready. "Okay, let's assume for now that there still might be some of those dogs roaming the grounds, or even some other defense measure," Hal said. "It'll slow us down, but I think we should all stay together, just in case."

"Fine by me," Cutter answered, slinging a bag of electronics gear onto his shoulder. "I don't relish the idea of being robo-kibble."

A sweep of the above-ground levels revealed nothing of use, though it appeared that some scavengers had been there in the months since Jonah's visit. They took it as a good sign: if people had been on the grounds, then perhaps all the defenses had been eliminated. Despite that, they were taking no chances: each of them carried a weapon loaded with armor-piercing rounds along with a few timed explosive charges, the only things the gunfighter thought were capable of stopping one of those machine-hounds. Picking a building at random, the group began to head into the bowels of the facility. Jonah took the lead, with Cutter and Stiletta following, and Hal taking up the rear. The Green Lantern carried a can of reflective spraypaint in addition to a gun, and marked the wall every ten feet or so with an arrow pointing the way they'd come.

They soon found that a few areas were completely impassible, as parts of the structure appeared to have caved in, or the sliding metal doors refused to open no matter how much force was applied. The deeper they went, the more the place felt like a tomb. The echoes of footsteps off the walls and the lack of power in some areas didn't help. During one long stretch of darkness, the otherwise stale air in the corridor began to sour, like raw meat that had been left out too long. Jonah stopped short, waving his hand into the beam of one of the flashlights behind him to call for a halt.

"What's wrong? You find something?" Stiletta asked, raising her light towards his face.

He grabbed hold of it and pushed it back down. "Don't know yet. Stay still." He left the group and moved forward, his own light trained on the ground. It soon fell on a dark mass laying on the floor, vaguely human-shaped. Putting down his flashlight, he knelt beside it for a moment, then called the rest of them over. The added light soon revealed a man in a heavy coat that had been shredded in multiple places, along with the flesh beneath. The face was a mask of dried blood and splintered bone, and the person's right arm was missing below the elbow. Jonah looked up at them and said what they were all thinking: "There's at least one left."

"How long ago?" Hal asked, his nose wrinkling up at the smell.

"'Bout a week. Scav, most likely. Got adventurous an' decided tuh go explorin'. Ain't much of a blood trail, so he must've gotten hit pretty quick. Put up a fight, though." He picked up his flashlight and pointed it to the other side of the corridor. The rest of the arm was over there, a pistol still in hand. "Knocked him down, ripped it off, then crushed his skull."

Cutter made an unpleasant noise and put a hand over his mouth. "You all right?" Stiletta asked him, and he nodded.

"Last time Ah was here, three of 'em tried tuh jump us. We blowed up two, and the third fell through a rotted spot in the floor. Made a lot of noise on the way down, an' Ah figured thet was the end of it." Jonah stood up. "Reckon Ah underestimated it."

"If any of you want to go back, I won't hold it against you," Hal said, looking at each of them in turn. "It's my risk, not yours."

Jonah shrugged. "Ain't changed much fer me. Now Ah know fer sure there's something down here 'stead of just guessin' 'bout it. 'Sides, maybe it won't know _we're_ here if'n we keep this quick an' quiet."

Stiletta and Cutter agreed, but the young man seemed a bit pale. _Don't blame him_, Jonah thought, _muh own stomach's startin' tuh flutter a touch._ He did his best to push such thoughts aside as they continued down the corridor, all of them keeping a closer eye on their surroundings.

The tension in the group went down a bit when they reached a lit section once again, and not long after that, they came upon a door marked simply CONTROL. "This might be it," Hal said, and worked his fingers into the slim opening to pry it the doors apart. With a squeal, the frozen mechanism finally gave way and revealed a room lined with computer terminals and monitoring equipment. Some were even operating, though they currently showed nothing more than static. "All right, let's see what we can do with this," he said to Cutter, and the two of them began walking up and down the rows of electronics, toggling switches to see what did and didn't respond.

Stiletta followed after them, but stopped when she noticed Jonah still standing in the doorway. "Feeling a little lost, cowboy?" she asked, gesturing to the terminals.

"Somebody's gotta stand guard," he replied, then turned to face the corridor.

She came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, where's that smile I saw earlier?"

"No smilin' when Ah'm on the job...bad fer muh reputation." He cocked his head towards the others. "Go on, girl. If'n Ah need help, Ah'll holler."

She lingered for a moment, then gave his shoulder a squeeze and walked away, rejoining the guys as they fiddled around under one of the consoles. To be honest, he _did _feel lost in this place, but it was a feeling he was learning to live with. _Maybe Ah won't need tuh much longer, though,_ Hex thought. No matter what he told the Green Lantern, he had been wondering if the masked men they were trying to reach really could help him get home. And after Hal mentioned that the gunfighter's future may not be one that ends in a dusty warehouse, his desire to get back had grown. _Yo're settin' yerself up fer another fall, Jonah boy, _he told himself. _Wish in one hand an' spit in the other_, _see which one'll do yuh the most good._

As the other three worked on making the long-neglected equipment functional again, Jonah paced up and down the corridor, smoking too many cigarettes and keeping his eyes and ears wide open. There appeared to be no trace of the four-legged defense system nearby, but he wasn't about to drop his guard. He stopped at the head of every hallway that branched off of the one near the control room, listening for the whine of servomotors or the throaty metallic growl he remembered the machine-hound made. He heard nothing but the thump of the ventilation system. _If'n it was a real animal, Ah could check fer droppings, _he thought. '_Course, this thing could shit out scrap metal fer all Ah know._ Whenever his path took him past the control room, he'd poke his head in to see how they were making out. Unfortunately, the gibberish they spoke to each other about frequencies and signal-bouncing and words that he wasn't even sure were English just made him shake his head and continue on down the corridor.

After a few hours, he began to wonder how long they'd go at it before they finally declared it a loss. The gunfighter was thinking of interrupting them to ask if they were spending the night when Stiletta came out of the room and waved to him. "It worked! I can't believe it, we got a hold of somebody!" she said as he came down the hall.

"Keep yer voice down, sugar," he replied, "we're trespassin', remember?" Inside, though, he felt like shouting as well. "Is it the right somebody?"

"GL says so. He called the guy 'Owen', I think."

"Well, if'n he's on a first-name basis with the fella, then Ah reckon we're in business." The two of them headed into the control room. Hal and Cutter sat at one of the terminals, each wearing a slim headset with a microphone attached to the earpiece. Stiletta handed one like it to Jonah, who held it up to his ear. The voice he heard was partly obscured by pops of static, but he could make it out well enough.

"...ask you to cease transmission. Communication over this frequency is reserved for emergency signals only. You are in violation of..."

"I don't care if I'm in violation. Matter of fact, I encourage you to come arrest me personally," Hal answered. "This is not a joke, this is a genuine distress call from Earth, Sector 2814. My name is Hal Jordan, I was Green Lantern for this sec..."

"Hal Jordan is dead," the voice interrupted, "and Earth is no longer under the protection of the Corps. I must ask you to cease transmission. Communication over this frequency..."

"Don't start that again, dammit! I'm not in the mood for typical Oan bullheadedness! If you don't believe I am who I say, then dig up my old security codes and I'll rattle them off to you. Better yet, get someone that knew me. We'll have this cleared up in five minutes."

"No matter your true identity, I cannot comply. A quarantine has been placed on Earth, outlawing contact with the planet in any form...including this communication."

"Why?" Jonah spoke into the headset mike. Everyone looked at him like he'd fired a shot in the room. Hal repeatedly drew a hand across his throat and mouthed _Shut up!_

Without missing a beat, the voice from Oa replied, "The planet's inhabitants have been declared too unstable to maintain meaningful relations with. They have a history of self-destructive behavior, as well as xenophobic tendencies. While the actions of Green Lantern Hal Jordan and a few others from his planet have shown that some can rise above their society's limitations, on a whole Earth is still far too barbaric. Until evidence is presented to the contrary, the Guardians will not allow the planet's negative influence to spread beyond its system."

"Give me a chance to plead my case to the Guardians," Hal said. "I'll convince them to lift the quarantine, just for a while."

"Request denied. This communication will be forcibly terminated in five seconds, and all further transmissions from your coordinates will be ignored." After a pause, the voice said, "I am sorry," followed by a brief electronic tone, then silence.

Hal slowly sat back in his chair, then took off the headset, tossed it onto the keyboard in front of him, and let his hands drop to his lap. One by one, the others did the same. After a minute, Cutter began to turn off the equipment, his hand lingering for a moment above every switch, as if waiting for a last-second reprieve.

It was Jonah that finally broke the silence. "Thet 'Owen' fella always talk like a big-city lawyer?" he asked.

"I think the Oans have perfected that sort of talk," the Green Lantern answered, standing up. "Let's get the Hell out of here."

* * *

The four of them walked back to the surface like they'd been condemned, no one speaking. When they entered the long dark spot in the corridor where they'd found the body, Cutter tried to break the bleak mood. "It'll be nice to have you around for Christmas," he told Hal. "Marya says she got two hams for the big dinner tomorrow night."

"That's great, Cutter."

"It's not so bad living at Maple, you'll see. Better than some other places." He dropped back a little so that fell in step beside Hal, the beams from their flashlights bouncing in rhythm.

"You seem like good people." The young man couldn't see the Lantern's face very well in the dark, but his voice came out flat.

Cutter began to say something else, but Jonah shushed him and made them all stop. "Ah think Ah heard something," the gunfighter whispered. He panned his light in a circle from left to right, letting it crawl over the walls and pour down a nearby hallway. Nothing out of the ordinary could be seen. "Thought fer damn sure Ah heard something," he muttered, and started to step forward.

That was when they all heard a soft whirr and a scraping of metal, but not from their level. Hal caught sight of it first: a large hole in the ceiling, opening up to the level above them. They'd passed the rubble in the corridor earlier with barely a second glance, there were so many areas like it. Now Hal looked up and saw red eyes watching Jonah as the gunfighter walked right beneath the hole.

"Hex, get down!" Jordan pushed Cutter behind him, then brought up his borrowed gun and fired at the mechanical dog just as it jumped down from its perch. One of the bullets struck home, but it wasn't enough to stop the machine.

Jonah saw it coming and hit the floor, dropping his light as he slid out of the way and drew his own guns. When he came up into a kneeling stance to take aim, however, he stopped cold.

In the spinning beam of his abandoned flashlight was Stiletta, flat on her back with the machine-hound straddling her, the stock of her rifle wedged in its jaws.


	8. Upon a Midnight Clear

_No chit-chat this time, kids, let's just get right to the action...and yes, we are nearing the end._

**8: UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR**

The first time Jonah had gone up against these iron hounds, it had been in one of the aboveground hangers, with a good distance between him and them to work with before they could sink their teeth into him. It had been close, but in the end, they'd never laid a paw on him. This time, however, the odds were stacked against him: he was trapped in a dark, narrow corridor, barely five feet away from the thing, and it had Stiletta pinned to the floor, to boot. The explosive charges he'd brought along would just rip them all apart at this range, and if he risked a shot with it thrashing around on top of Stiletta, a stray bullet might kill her. He had to make a decision quick, though, the splintering rifle stock in her hands wouldn't hold the huge metal beast at bay much longer.

"Everybody out of the way!" Hex yelled, then charged straight at the dog, turning his shoulder towards the bulk of it and knocking it off Stiletta. Hal and Cutter both dove for cover on opposite sides of the corridor as Jonah and the machine-hound tumbled past. The gunfighter came to rest about twelve feet from where he'd started, fighting to right himself before the dog could recover. Unfortunately for him, the machine was built to take heavy impacts, and it soon regained its footing and lunged after him. He rolled out of the way, but one of its front paws raked across his back, metal claws easily ripping through the layers of protective clothing and drawing blood. Cutter grabbed hold of Hex and pulled him into a hallway branching off from the main corridor.

Holding his flashlight along the length of the gunbarrel to illuminate his target, Hal fired at the machine-hound's own back as it ran past, the armor-piercing rounds punching holes in its hide. He didn't stop it, but he definitely got the machine's attention. It skidded to a stop and whirled on the Green Lantern, exposing itself to another barrage of gunfire from behind, this time from Stiletta at the head of the corridor. Her rifle was useless, so she was blasting away with the handgun she'd been carrying for a backup. "Get moving!" Hal told her. "Head for the crawler, we'll be right behind you!"

"No way, you need all the help you can get!" she answered, never letting up on the dog.

"Well, somebody better get a move-on," Jonah said as he and Cutter began to open fire from their position at the back, "'cause these bullets ain't gonna last forever!"

One of their shots took out part of the dog's cranial housing, exposing wiring and sensors, but that only succeeded in making it more berserk. Sparks and shrapnel flew everywhere as it howled, metal teeth champing at the air. The photoelectric eyes of the beast stuttered for a moment, blinking on and off like twin traffic signals, but it still thrashed around. "I think we knocked out its vision," Hal said. Reaching down, he undid the Velcro straps on his leg brace and ripped it off. "If we're gonna make a run for it, now would be a good time!"

"Yuh heard him, son," Jonah said, and gave Cutter a push to get him moving. The young man's eyes were fixed on the dog as they ran past. It looked straight at them for a moment, but it didn't appear to notice them. "Never mind it, Ah've got us covered," Jonah told him, giving him another push, "yuh just look where yo're goin'!"

Flashlight beams swung back and forth as they retreated, alternating from the floor to check for obstacles, to the walls as they searched for the markers that would lead them back to the surface. Stiletta was far in front, with Hal gaining, and Hex at the tail end with a hand clamped on Cutter's arm to make him keep pace. In the darkness behind them, the sound of the machine-hound careening into walls echoed up the corridor. "It's still coming," Cutter gasped, craning his neck around to stare into the black. "Fugging thing's blind, and it's still coming..."

"May be blind," Jonah said, "but it ain't deaf, so put a cork in it!" He knew it wouldn't help, though, their footsteps alone made enough noise for the dog to follow. Their only hope was to stay as far ahead of it as possible.

Suddenly, Hal went down, his flashlight dipping as he cursed and hit the floor. Cutter and Hex paused to help the Green Lantern, who was holding on to his injured leg. "Figured I could run faster without the brace," he said through gritted teeth, "but my stupid knee gave out."

Stiletta turned around and shined her light back at them. "What happened? Are you all right?"

"Perfect," Jonah answered, and put a hand under Hal's arm to yank him to his feet. "Lantern decided we don't have enough problems, so..." He stopped when Stiletta began shouting, the beam of her light darting to the right of the corridor. He then heard the whine of the machine-hound's gears directly behind them. With barely a thought, he threw himself to the left, pulling Hal along with him and getting off two shots with his Magnum. Unfortunately, Cutter was not so quick, and the hound jumped on top of him, knocking him to the ground. Front paws planted on his chest, it sank its teeth into his shoulder, the powerful jaws clamping down hard enough to snap his collarbone. Deciding that the danger of accidentally shooting Cutter was of little consequence now, Hex took aim for another shot...and hit an empty cylinder. In their rush to get away, he'd never reloaded. "Sonovabitch!" he shouted, then ran forward and smashed his gun over the dog's muzzle until it let go, giving Hal the opportunity to grab Cutter. It snapped at Hex blindly for a moment, then jumped on the young man again, latching onto his calf before Hal could pull him completely away from the dog. The Green Lantern fell to the ground as well, but he kept his arms wrapped around Cutter's chest and held on as the dog tried to drag them both further down the corridor. "Hold on tuh him, Ah'll be right back!" Jonah said, then ran off into the darkness.

Stiletta soon joined Hal, adding her weight to the human chain as the dog jerked Cutter's leg in a perverse game of tug-of-war, the young man screaming the whole time. "Where the Hell did Hex go?" Hal asked her, then turned his head in the direction he saw the gunfighter run, yelling, "Come back here, you bastard! I swear to God, if you don't..."

He stopped when he heard something banging down the hallway, and Jonah's voice echoing off the walls: "C'mon, doggie! Yuh want a fight, Ah'll give yuh a good one!" Though Hal couldn't see very well in the dim corridor, he could hear the sound of bootheels slapping the ground, and it was coming closer. "Over here, yuh stupid clockwork mutt! Yuh couldn't take me out last time, so here's yer chance fer a rematch!" Jonah yelled, then Hal saw a human shape fly out of the darkness and land on the machine-hound. The dog reared up with a growl, letting go of Cutter and turning its attention on its new opponent, who offered no resistance.

"Jonah, no!" Stiletta screamed, and began to reach out to try and pull the dog away, but another hand came from behind her and latched onto her wrist. She turned to yell at Green Lantern, then saw that it was Jonah. "How the Hell..."

"Never mind," he said, "we've got maybe ten seconds 'til the charges go off." He then scooped Cutter up into his arms, and the three of them ran as fast as they could away from the dog, Stiletta supporting Hal on his bad leg. Seconds later, an explosion lit up the corridor, shards of metal and concrete flying everywhere as they hit the deck. More of the ceiling caved in behind them, entombing the remains of the machine-hound. Coughing a bit from the smoke, the gunfighter muttered, "The timers on them things is a shade off."

Hal groped for Jonah in the darkness. "How's Cutter? You still got him?" He ran a hand over Cutter's neck to check for a pulse as Jonah set him down on the floor. "I need a light...who's still got a flashlight?"

"Shit, I dropped mine back there somewhere. Jonah, do you..." Stiletta began to say, then stopped when she saw a spark.

"Sometimes, yuh got tuh do things the old-fashioned way," Jonah said, holding up the wooden match so Hal could see what he was doing. The light was poor, but it was enough to tell that Cutter was in awful shape. His coat was soaked with blood at the shoulder, and the dog had nearly torn his leg off, dislocating it from the hip socket in the struggle. More blood was pumping out of the shredded muscle that used to be his calf. He wasn't screaming anymore, just laying there with his eyes rolled up to the whites and breathing shallowly.

"We've got to stop the bleeding." Hal undid Cutter's belt and cinched it tightly around the young man's thigh. "I need something for bandages."

Stiletta removed her coat and tore the sleeves off, handing them to Jordan. She then ripped a few more strips off of what was left and wrapped it around a long piece of metal lying nearby. "You want to explain your little magic trick back there?" she asked Hex as she lit the impromptu torch with his match.

"Figured since the dog was blind, it wouldn't know the dif'rence 'tween a live body an' a dead one right off," he said, "so Ah ran up the hall 'til Ah found thet fella we stumbled across, shoved a couple charges in his pockets, then ran back here howlin' like the Devil so's the dog would think Ah was the one a-jumpin' on it."

"That's an absolutely insane idea."

"Worked, didn't it?"

Hal waved a hand at Stiletta, saying, "Bring the light closer." He'd bandaged the shoulder, and was now working on tying a splint to Cutter's leg, using two more pieces of the metal shrapnel that used to be part of the corridor. "This should keep it immobile enough to move him," he said. "We've got to get him back to the warehouse, and fast."

Careful not to jostle him too roughly, Hal and Jonah carried the unconscious young man out of the complex, Stiletta leading the way with the torch. Once they'd returned to the vehicle, they laid Cutter across the bench-like seats in the passenger compartment, wrapping him in a blanket stowed onboard and strapping him down as best they could so he wouldn't bounce around. The gunfighter collapsed on the floor next to the seats as Hal and Stiletta readied the crawler to head out. Hal poked his head out of the driver's cabin to check on the two of them once they were moving, but Jonah waved him off. "Y'all worry 'bout steerin' this monster, Ah'll keep an eye on the kid," he said.

"Who's going to keep an eye on you?" Though he'd treated Cutter's wounds, no one had even taken a look at the gouges in Jonah's back.

"Ah've had worse," he answered, and leaned back against the crawler's hull. Despite his bravado, Jonah was in quite a bit of agony. The engine seemed to thrum in time with the throbbing pain in his back as they drove across the frozen wasteland, but he ignored it for now and focused his attention on Cutter, watching the kid for any sign of trouble.

After an hour or so, the gunfighter's eyes began to slip closed from exhaustion, but he soon snapped to attention when he thought he heard Cutter speak, followed by a cough. Jonah sat up and felt the young man's pulse near his throat, saying, "Kin yuh hear me, son?"

"Dad?" he gasped, trying to lift his head.

"Yer dad's not here," Jonah said, "lie still."

"It hurts, Dad...make it stop, please..." His voice was so weak, he sounded like he was eight instead of eighteen.

Jonah placed a hand against Cutter's pale, clammy cheek as the young man stared through him with unfocused eyes. "Ah wish Ah could," he said, and he meant it. He'd seen things like this when he'd fought in the Civil War: badly wounded men laying in battlefront hospitals or out in the field, begging for the comfort of friends and loved ones. A few were so far gone, they became incoherent. He remembered one long night hunkered down in a ditch, listening to some poor soul out in the dark screaming for fried chicken and ice cream. After a couple hours, someone managed to put a bullet into the screaming man and end his misery. "Yuh did real good today, Cutter," he told him.

If he heard the words, he made no sign. "I'm tired..."

"Ah know. Yuh rest easy now, boy...yer dad will be here when yuh wake up."

Cutter said nothing else after that, the only sound coming from him being the unsteady wheeze of his breathing. A few minutes later, that faded away as well. Jonah moved his hand over the young man's eyes, then got up and walked over to the front cabin. Hal immediately began to get up from the co-pilot's chair, but the gunfighter put a hand on his shoulder to hold him in his seat. He then leaned over to Stiletta and told her to slow down.

She looked up at Jonah and was about to chew him out for suggesting such a thing, then she saw the expression on his face. "No...no, you're wrong," she said, tears already forming in her eyes. "You go check, GL. He's wrong, he's got to be..." Even as she said the words, she was cutting the acceleration on the crawler. By the time the machine came to a full halt, she had crumpled up over the steering wheel, still telling Hex he had made a mistake in between sobs.

* * *

The sun was setting as the crawler pulled back into its berth at Maple. The three of them stood clustered around Cutter's body for a moment, no one speaking. The blanket had been pulled up over his face, but they were all reluctant to disturb the scene any further. "I'll ask Vance to bring the gurney down here," Stiletta said eventually. "That seems like the best thing to do." Hal and Jonah nodded in agreement. They lingered on a while longer before finally disembarking, none of them ready to face the other residents just yet, but they had no choice.

"Christ, what took you so long?" Lewis said as they exited the vehicle. "Where the Hell did you go, you said it'd only take a few hours." He immediately began looking over the exterior for damage.

They all ignored him, filing past the mechanic on their way out of the motor pool. When he began to enter the crawler, however, Hal turned around and took hold of Lewis's shoulder. "Don't...just hold off for now, okay?"

"Why, what did you break?" Lewis then looked over the group and said, "Where's Cutter?" At the mention of his name, Stiletta began to tear up again.

"We had an accident...just hold off for now," Hal repeated, then let go and rejoined the others as they entered the main hall.

Lewis wasn't about to let them off so easy. "What sort of 'accident'? Where'd you guys go?" He followed them out into the hall. There were a few other people milling about as well, and they all stopped to watch as Lewis grabbed Hal's arm and spun him around. "This have to do with your 'superhero' bullshit?" The Green Lantern said nothing, which to Lewis was as good as an admission of guilt. "You son of a bitch...you weren't happy with playing dress-up by yourself, were you? You had to drag that kid into it, too!" He shoved Hal back a step.

"Can't you shut up for once?" Stiletta said. "You're totally out of your depth this time, Lewis."

"The Hell I am. First it was your crazy boyfriend pretending to be some dead cowboy, then this asshole shows up saying he's a superhero, and everybody plays along with the joke. Now Cutter's dead, and that joke isn't so damn funny now."

"It's _not_ a joke," Hal told him in an even tone, "it never was."

"Yeah, right. The two of you are _really_ time-travelers, and this is just one big happy adventure for you. No problems to worry about, no consequences when you screw up and kill some eager-to-please kid." He glared at Hal. "Well, the rest of us don't have that luxury. We live in the _real_ fugging world. We're all scrounging to survive in this nightmare, and we don't need a couple of briq-heads coming around to..."

Jonah stepped forward and punched Lewis in the jaw, cutting him off mid-sentence. He fell to the ground, and Jonah jumped on top of the mechanic and began pounding on him, his face locked in a tight grimace. Lewis wrapped his arms over his head in an effort to protect himself, but it didn't deter the gunfighter in the least. Hal tried to grab hold of the Hex's arm and stop him, but his efforts only earned him a fist to the face. He stumbled back, Stiletta catching him before he could fall to the ground himself.

The slight distraction gave Lewis a chance to land a few blows, knocking Jonah off of him. "Fugger's crazy!" he yelled as he scrambled to get away. The gunfighter didn't let him stray too far, though: he grabbed Lewis by the hair with one hand, then reached beneath the collar of his coat and pulled out his knife with the other. He held it to the mechanic's throat as they knelt on the floor, Lewis's back pressed against Jonah's chest.

"Mister Bowie wants tuh hear yuh say 'Sorry'," Hex whispered directly into the man's ear. Lewis let out a whimper and nothing more.

"That's enough, Hex, let him go," Hal said. While his head didn't move, Jonah's eyes focused on Hal, and what the Green Lantern saw in them gave him a chill. He remembered what Jonah had said not long after he'd arrived about showing those gangbangers who the bigger, meaner dog was. Judging by the look in Jonah's eyes, Hal felt that the biggest, meanest dog in the yard may have just gone rabid.

"Oh Jesus," Lewis begged, "Jesus God, don't, please..."

"Thet ain't whut Ah asked fer," Jonah told him, pressing the knife harder into Lewis's throat. Blood was already trickling from the corner of mechanic's mouth and his nose, and it was soon joined by a small drop collecting on the edge of the blade.

"Sorry! I'm sorry! Christ Jesus, I'm sorry, don't kill me!"

Jonah removed the knife and shoved him forward, sprawling him out on the concrete floor. "Ah hear yuh shootin' yer damn fool mouth off like thet again, an' Ah won't be so forgivin'," he said as he stood up, slipping the knife back into the sheath beneath his coat collar. Hex then turned and slowly walked out of the main hall as Jordan pulled Lewis to his feet. The mechanic was still muttering apologies under his breath.

* * *

December twenty-fourth: even in a world torn to pieces by nuclear holocaust, that day still meant Christmas Eve to many people, including those residing at Maple. That particular date, however, would also be remembered as the day they laid Cutter to rest in the tiny cemetery outside the complex's perimeter. The grave lay next to his father's, though not as deep due to the hardness of the winter earth. Stiletta began to cry as one of the residents read a few passages from a ragged Bible, and even Hal felt some tears slip free when they lowered the body in, swaddled in a plastic tarp. Only Jonah seemed unmoved by the whole proceedings. In fact, he didn't show up for the funeral until halfway through, choosing to stand at the edge of the group around the grave, his face lacking any expression. He hadn't talked to anyone since thrashing Lewis the night before, and when Stiletta tried to approach him after the funeral, Jonah simply walked away before she even got close to him. "You don't think he's starting to slip again, do you?" she asked Hal.

"After what he did yesterday, I don't know," he answered. That didn't make her feel any better.

As the day went on, the children began to get wound up in anticipation for the big Christmas Eve dinner, and the presents to follow. They didn't understand why most of the grown-ups seemed sad, or why they changed the subject when one of the kids asked why Cutter wasn't there to fix the lights on the artificial tree they'd set up in the Hub. Despite the hellish environment they had spent most of their lives in, many of the children still had no comprehension of death. In the days to follow, their parents would do their best to explain it to them, but for now, the words would go unsaid.

Hal volunteered to play watchdog while the others gathered for the feast. He thought it only fair, seeing as he was sort of the odd man out. Stiletta tried to talk him out of it, but the Green Lantern had made up his mind. "If I'm staying here, I'll have to start pulling my own weight sometime, right?" he said, giving her a small smile. "Consider this my Christmas present to everybody." He then left the Hub, wishing a happy holiday to folks as he walked past them. Once he was gone, her thoughts lingered on him. Though he seemed fine, she worried that the current setback might cause Hal to become like Jonah: a stranger out of time, isolating himself from a world that he felt he had no place in.

_No, Lantern said he's been through this sort of thing before, _she thought, _he'll be all right. Jonah, on the other hand... _Stiletta realized then that the gunfighter hadn't shown up for the dinner hour. She'd hoped that he wouldn't try and skip out as well, but it appeared that was exactly what he was going to do. As the other residents began sitting down at the tables laid out around the room, Stiletta left the Hub and headed down the hall to Hex's quarters. Not surprisingly, the door was shut, and she gave a light rap on the metal plating, saying, "Jonah? Are you all right in there?" There was no answer at first, then she heard movement behind the door. He opened it just enough to look out at her, the poker face still in place. "I was just...do you want to come down for dinner?" she asked, his stony gaze making her nervous.

"Not hungry," was all he said.

"Well, maybe you could come down anyways, just to hang out. It's Christmas Eve, you shouldn't be cooped up all by yourself."

"Wouldn't be the first one Ah spent by muh lonesome." A small flicker of emotion in his eyes, gone before it could fully manifest. "'Sides, them folks don't want me 'round tuh spoil their fun."

"That's not true. If you think they hate you for what you did to Lewis, forget it. Everyone here has wanted to bust him in the chops at one time or another." She'd hoped to get a smile out of him, but the poker face remained. "If you're not coming out, can I come in, then? I feel silly talking to you through a crack in the door."

He hesitated, then opened it a little wider, stepping aside to let her in the room. The dim lamplight made her shadow dance on the wall as she passed it. "Why ain't yuh down there yerself?" he asked, closing the door.

"I wanted to see if you were okay."

"Ah ain't been drinkin'."

"That's not what I said." She stood in the middle of the room, hugging her elbows. "I'm worried about you, Jonah. I don't want you to start hiding again."

"Ah won't, promise. Ah just don't feel like bein' 'round nobody right now."

"Do you want me to leave?"

"No...no, yo're fine," Jonah said, then looked down at the floor. "Ah'm kind of glad yuh came by, actually. Been wantin' tuh talk, but..." He ran a hand through his hair. "Ah ain't sure whut tuh say."

"What is it? You can tell me." She took a step forward, closing the distance between them. He looked nervous, and she had a feeling about what was on his mind. "Did you want to talk about Cutter?"

He shook his head. "Ain't thet exactly. Close, but..." He took a deep breath, then said, "When we was down in them tunnels, an' thet dog came out an'...when it pinned yuh, Ah got scared."

Stiletta smiled and said, "Is that it? You dope, we were _all_ scared, that's nothing to be ashamed of."

"Thet ain't whut Ah meant. Ah got scared 'cause Ah thought...Ah thought it was gonna kill yuh, an' Ah couldn't bear the thought of thet." He mussed his hair again, stalling. "The whole time Ah've been stuck in this godawful place, yo're the only thing thet's kept me goin'. Hell, Ah'd be dead ten times over if'n yuh hadn't been there tuh tell me whut's whut these days. Ah need yuh."

"Maybe in the beginning, but you do all right for yourself now. What about those couple times when we got separated? You did fine then."

"Chalk thet up tuh dumb luck, 'cause thet's all thet was." Gently, he placed his hands on her shoulders. "Even then, the only thing Ah could think of was findin' yuh again. Yo're important tuh me, Ah..." He lowered his head for a moment, and when he brought it back up, he looked directly into her eyes. "Ah love yuh, Stiletta."

She didn't speak, couldn't speak. She'd always suspected, but to hear him say it was something else entirely. For him to lay himself bare like that, after months of dancing around how he felt, took courage. "Jonah..." she finally managed to say, but he cut her off.

"If'n yuh don't feel the same, thet's fine. Ah think Ah kin live with thet, but after everything thet's happened lately...Ah didn't want tuh lose yuh without yuh knowin' thet."

"I think I already did," she said, then reached out and touched his chest, her hands sliding over the black, synthetic material of his shirt, "but I don't know how I feel."

"Like Ah said, thet's fine...but Ah do hope thet yuh feel the same. Ah know Ah ain't the handsomest fella 'round these parts, but Ah like tuh think thet Ah'm long on charm."

"Oh, you are," she answered, laughing. Jonah laughed a little himself, then moved his hands from her shoulders up to her face, cupping it in his callused palms. He then gave her a kiss, lingering for just a moment before pulling away. Stiletta had kissed him before, just hours after they'd met. Not out of affection, though, merely a thank-you for saving her life. The look of surprise on his face at the time had been priceless. The look he gave her now was one she'd never seen from him before: soft and full of warmth, overshadowing the twisted scars until they seemed to not exist at all.

"Sorry, had tuh do it," he said, "even if it's just the once."

"It's okay." She then surprised herself by saying, "You can do it again, if you want."

He did, taking his full measure of time as he embraced her, hands caressing her long blonde hair. Jonah's fingers brushed against the clasp of her bodysuit at the base of her neck and stopped there. After a minute of fumbling with it, he pulled back from kissing her and grumbled, "Have Ah ever told yuh how much Ah hate this damn zone suit yuh wear?"

With a smile, she reached behind her neck, brushed his hands aside, and undid the clasp.

* * *

"Hey, how's things going up here?"

"Very boring," Hal said, leaning against the catwalk's rail. He watched Mookie step off the ladder and walk over to him, a thermos in hand. "Not much to do except count stars." The sun had set a few hours before, and the night sky was virtually cloudless, with a crescent moon hanging over the cul-de-sac.

"Yeah, I've done that quite a bit myself on watch. That's a good thing, though. Means the scavs are taking the holiday off."

"So what brings you by?"

"An urgent errand of mercy." She held out the thermos. "Marya sends coffee and a notice that if you don't get your butt down to the Hub, all us piggies are gonna eat your share of the chow."

"I'll survive," he answered, then took the thermos and unscrewed the plastic cup from the top. "Tell her that the coffee is appreciated. I feel like I might fall asleep up here."

"Sure you don't want to pop off for a bit? I can keep an eye out...not that I think anything will happen." Hal insisted that he was fine, and turned back to gaze through the wall slots at the cul-de-sac, taking a sip of coffee . Mookie leaned against the rail herself and said, "Do you mind if I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"There's a rumor going around that you're really an alien or something, and you were, like, trying to phone home yesterday. That true?"

"You don't beat around the bush, do you?"

"I know, it drives Red nuts. So, is it true?"

"Only half. This is alien," he explained, holding up his ring hand, "and so were the beings that gave it to me, but I'm human last I checked."

"Oh...damn, I always wanted to meet an alien."

Hal laughed, spitting a little coffee back into the cup. "Trust me, it gets old fast," he said as he wiped his bottom lip. "After a while, you don't even think of them as being different."

"You've met a lot of 'em?"

"Met them, worked with them, fought them, dated them..."

"Aw, get out! You didn't date an alien!"

He raised his hand again, like he was taking an oath. "It's the truth, I swear. It happened years ago, but..." He stopped when he saw that Mookie was staring at his hand. "Something wrong?" he asked.

"Was that glowing earlier?"

Jordan didn't know what she was talking about at first, then he saw it as well: a faint green glow skirting the edges of his ring emblem. "What the Hell?" he muttered, then he caught movement out of the corner of his eye through one of the wall slots. He rushed forward, leaning as best he could out of the slot, staring up at the dark sky. _I imagined it, _Hal thought_, it's just a trick of the light, nothing's..._ Then he saw it again: three new stars in the sky. Green stars. And they were growing.

Mookie stood next to him, staring just as hard. "What is that?" she breathed.

"I think you might get to meet some aliens after all," Hal said. "Go find Hex, quick!" They both ran for the ladder at the same time, almost knocking each other off the catwalk.

* * *

Nestled under blankets, Jonah lay perfectly still, trying to not disturb Stiletta as she drowsed in his arms. The bed was only made to fit one person, leaving little room to stretch out. _Don't bother me none,_ he thought, and gently traced the contour of her face with his finger. _Ah could spend the rest of muh life right here._

She shifted closer, her breath tickling his neck, then kissed him along his jawline. "This is nice," she said softly.

"Ah was just thinkin' the same."

"So...what do we do now?"

"If'n yo're suggestin' we have another go already..."

"No, I meant us." Stiletta moved a little so she could look Jonah in the eye. "Is this a one-time thing or what?"

"Ah'd rather it not be," he said, touching her face again. "Ah thought Ah'd made thet clear."

"You did, but I was just thinking, with you and the Lantern trying to find a way back home..."

"_He's_ tryin' tuh get home, not me. Far as Ah'm concerned, _this_ is muh home from now on."

She looked at him quietly for a moment, then said, "You're serious."

"Why wouldn't Ah be? Been doin' a little thinkin' of muh own: if'n Ah ain't the Jonah Hex we found in the warehouse, then maybe Ah ain't the Jonah Hex thet Lantern met, neither. Maybe he met the one thet got his dumb ass stuffed."

"But what if you _are_ the one that helped him out? Do you want to take that risk?"

"We ain't goin' nowheres, so there ain't no risk. Fer all Ah know, this is where Ah'm supposed tuh be...an' if'n thet's the case, then Ah want y'all tuh be here with me." He cocked an eyebrow. "Assumin' yuh'll have me, of course."

Stiletta kissed him in response, letting her hand drift up to his face. She had been hesitant about touching his scars while they made love, unsure of both his reaction and her own if she'd done so. Now she did it without fear, her fingertips barely touching the skin . "You've never told me how this happened," she said.

He laid his hand over hers, so that her palm covered most of the ruin on the right side of his face. "Does it matter?" he asked.

"No, it doesn't." She went to kiss him again, but stopped when someone began pounding on the door and calling Hex's name. It sounded like Mookie.

"Whatever yo're sellin', we ain't buyin'!" Jonah yelled at the door.

Mookie wasn't so easily deterred. "C'mon, Hex, we've got a situation out front!"

That made both of them sit up in bed. Jonah already had his pants on before Stiletta could even put her feet on the floor. "Whut's goin' on?" he asked as he buckled on his gunbelts.

"I'm not sure," Mookie told him through the door, "but I think some of GL's friends decided to drop in for Christmas dinner."

Hex and Stiletta froze, staring at each other. "Tell him we're a-comin' on the double!" he called out, throwing on the rest of his clothes. Jonah ran out into the hall seconds later and bolted to the front entrance, dodging people who were collecting by the open warehouse door in an effort to discover what the commotion was about. When he made it outside, he could see Hal standing in the middle of the cul-de-sac, looking up at a trio of green, human-shaped streaks in the sky that were closing in fast. As they neared the ground, Jonah saw that only one of them could actually pass for human. The other two were almost beyond the gunfighter's comprehension in appearance, though they all wore uniforms very similar to Hal's.

Jonah barely noticed when Stiletta caught up with him, laying a hand on his shoulder. She was struck dumb the same as him. After a few minutes of watching Jordan talk with the new arrivals, Hex finally managed to recover his voice long enough to croak out the standard saying he used when words just plain failed him:

"Holy Hannah..."


	9. Time Has Come Today

_Behold, the last two chapters! Hope you like how everything turns out -- I'll meet you at the end of the story with a fistful of notes and some happy news!_

**9: TIME HAS COME TODAY**

"We had to see if it was true." That was what the Green Lanterns told Hal when he asked why they'd disobeyed the Guardians' wishes. Apparently, the signal he'd sent out through the relay network had been picked up by a few other Lanterns as it made its way to Oa, but the quarantine prevented any of them from answering directly, and they could only listen as Hal argued his case. "After they cut off your transmission, those of us that heard it decided that it should not be dismissed," the more human-looking Lantern said. While his skin color was rather ashen and his eyes a little too blue for close-up inspection, at a glance no resident of Earth would even notice the difference. "We three were the closest in proximity to your planet, so we were chosen to come investigate."

"Not that I don't appreciate you coming," Hal said, "but aren't you afraid of reprisals when you get back to Oa?"

The second Lantern, a tall fellow with a broad face and two sets of pitch-black eyes, flashed a toothy grin at him. "From what I've heard about the great Hal Jordan of Earth, you never seemed to concern yourself with such thoughts when it came down to obeying the Guardians or doing what was right."

"Later is for consequences," the third, insect-like Lantern said, "now is for action."

Hal agreed, and the sooner the better. The only question was what sort of action to take. They had relocated to inside the warehouse, and after a getting-acquainted period with the residents of Maple (which involved a lot of the kids being fascinated by the "big bug"), the Lanterns, Hex, Stiletta, and a handful of the residents got down to business. "First priority is getting that engine out of the hands of the Slabberz," Hal said. "Hopefully, they haven't tried dismantling or scrapping it yet. Once we secure it, we have to see if it still works, and then try to figure out if there's any way we can direct the energy to suit our needs."

"So we're plannin' a raid, thet it?" Jonah pulled out one of his guns and cocked the hammer. "Hell, Ah'm game."

"No...no guns." Hal answered. "We do this the Corps way: no killing, not unless it becomes absolutely necessary."

"Ah'd love tuh see how yuh plan on corralin' all them skunks, then."

The tall Lantern used his ring to grab Hex by his gun hand, pick him up off his feet, then pull him over to where he stood. A little extra force made the bounty hunter drop his Magnum into the Green Lantern's outstretched hand. "Is that enough of a demonstration?" he asked, lifting Hex up until he was looking straight into the alien's four eyes.

"Reckon it'll do...mind puttin' me down, big fella? We's on the same side, last Ah checked." With a laugh, the alien set Jonah back on his feet and handed him the gun. "Ah still think some backup couldn't hurt," he grumbled.

"It looks to me like you don't even need help," Stiletta said.

Hal shook his head. "Even with the rings, we're not invincible. The more people we have with us, the easier this will be."

"But if you don't want us to use guns, how are we supposed to help you out?" Red asked, Mookie by his side. "Are you guys passing out those rings to everybody?"

"Not quite." Hal had taken a moment earlier to charge up his own ring, and used it now to construct what appeared to be an ordinary rifle, save for the fact that it was fashioned out of green light. "These won't fire normal ammunition, but they will pack enough punch to stun anybody hit by it," he explained, holding it by the stock, "and so long as our rings are powered up, they'll never run out of ammo."

"Let me see thet," Jonah said, and took it from Hal. He was surprised at the heft the thing had, even though he could see through it like it was made of glass. When he worked the loading mechanism, it made a solid _kla-chack _just as a real, metal rifle would. "Ah'll be damned. Kin yuh make anything with thet there ring?"

"Just about." Hal turned to the others. "Mookie suggested earlier that the scavs might be taking the night off because of the holiday, and if that's true, then we can catch them off guard. We need to do this hard and fast. Don't give them a chance to retreat or figure out why we're really there. And remember, the only purpose of this is to get that engine back. This isn't a smash-and-grab or vengeance mission. Anybody that wants to come along to take care of a grudge against the Slabberz can stay right here. Those that really want to help can meet us at the motor pool in a half-hour."

The group dispersed after that, some deciding to opt out, others sticking around to talk more with the newly-arrived Lanterns. Hal went over to confer with his fellow Corpsmen, leaving Jonah to examine his new weapon some more. As he did so, Stiletta came up to him, standing quietly beside him until he noticed her. "This is a fine trick, ain't it?" he said, holding up the rifle. "Just think 'bout something an' there it is." Then he saw the look in her eyes. "Whut's the matter?"

"You know."

He was about to say that he didn't, then realized what she meant. "This don't change nothin', sugar. Ah ain't packin' muh bags, Ah swear." He touched her face, but she pulled away.

"I...I need to do some things before we leave," she said. "I'll see you in half an hour." Stiletta then walked away from him and down the hall leading to the sleeping quarters. Jonah watched her go, feeling like he'd been punched in the gut.

While he hadn't been standing near enough to overhear the conversation, Hal did see Stiletta's departure, and left his own group to check on the gunfighter. "Everything all right, Hex?" he asked.

"Right as rain," he answered, not meaning a word of it, then turned and began to walk towards the motor pool. "Ah'd better get muh ride warmed up."

Hal put a hand on Jonah's arm to stop him, saying, "Forget it. I've got something better for you."

"Whut did yuh have in mind?"

"Just something that you told me the future was a mite short on," he said with a smile.

* * *

About eight blocks away from the parking garage where the Casimir engine lay, the two gangbangers Hal Jordan thought of as Baldy and Flyboy were making their way down the snowy, moonlit street. Locked arm-in-arm for mutual support, they sang raunchy versions of Christmas carols as they split a bottle of schnapps between them. Flyboy currently had possession, and he took a long pull while Baldy tried to come up with a way to pervert "Joy to the World".

"Joy to the girls, I am so hung!" he started, then paused to think of the next line.

"In bed, I am the king!" his friend chimed in. They both burst out laughing, Flyboy doubling over and almost dropping the bottle. "Ah-haha...aw, shit, I think...huh...I think I'm gonna puke."

Baldy let go of him quick. "Don't puke on me! Here..." He pulled Flyboy's aviator cap off his head and held it under the bent-over man's face. "Let 'er rip!"

He grabbed his cap away, saying, "You lousy fugger," then let out a belch, a line of spittle dribbling from the corner of his lip. "Ugh...that tasted like shit. Here, you take this." He passed Baldy the bottle.

"Merry Christmas to me!" He turned in a circle in the middle of the street, toasting the empty buildings around them before taking a swig. "And a Happy muthafugging New Year!"

Flyboy laughed at him, then stopped and cocked his head. "Hey, you hear something?"

"Nope." He was still turning in small circles, waving the bottle to and fro.

"Listen a minute, man." He grabbed hold of Baldy's arm to make him hold still. The noise soon grew louder, and they both looked up the eastbound street, straining to make out any sort of movement in the darkness. "Sounds like engines."

"Well, then I guess we'll have to give 'em a little Season's Greetings." They drew guns and pointed them in the direction of the noise, ready to open fire the moment they got a visual. Unfortunately for Flyboy and Baldy, once their targets came into view, they were each too stunned to pull the trigger.

The cycles they'd expected, that was obvious enough by the noise, and the fact that there were only three of them was no big deal at all. But the two black-and-green figures in the air above them caught the scavs completely flat-footed, and even that wasn't as big a shock as what was leading the charge: a scar-faced man on an emerald-green horse, standing tall in the saddle and letting loose with a blood-curdling Apache war cry.

"Holy..." was all Flyboy could get out before Jonah leveled his rifle at the man and blasted him in the chest, then did the same for Baldy. They both crumpled to the ground unconscious, neither of them aware that on the southern end of the city, their compatriots were falling to a second assault as the invading force worked its way towards the parking garage. Any scav that stood in their way soon found themselves either knocked out cold or locked in the shell of a building by a green force-field. Resistance was pretty low until they reached the garage itself. Many of the gangbangers were doing their partying at home this year, and some of them were still sober enough to pose a threat. Gunfire rang out in the street, causing the non-superpowered members of the raiding party to take cover.

"Keep 'em busy!" Jordan called out as he and the humanoid Lantern flew up to the third level.

"Easy fer y'all tuh say," Hex answered, "we ain't got no fancy magic rings tuh keep the bullets off us!" Nevertheless, the gunfighter directed his mount into the thick of it, picking off scavs on the fly. Most of them had never seen a horse before outside of photographs, and the fact that this one was green didn't settle their nerves any as they dived out of the way in an effort to not get trampled. _All's Ah need is muh spurs an' a cavalry sword, an' this'll be like Old Home Week,_ he thought. The other raiders were giving it their all as well, providing cover fire or following Jonah's lead and running down the fleeing scavs on their cycles. Some of the gang members wised up and began to go for their own rides, which caught Jonah's attention real quick. "Hey, big fella!" he yelled at the tall Lantern nearby, "want tuh help storm the fort?"

The Lantern immediately headed for the garage's street-level entrance, Hex right behind. The gangbangers soon found themselves severely lacking in transportation as beams of emerald light tore their vehicles to shreds, and their owners were also swiftly taken out of the picture by Jonah's lightning-fast trigger finger.

With all the action on the ground, the two Lanterns breaking into the upper level of the garage went virtually unnoticed. The plastic tarp protecting the interior from the elements did little to deter them, and the third floor seemed clear of hostiles as they set down inside. "It should be over this way," Hal told his companion, and they headed over to where he'd last seen the Casimir engine. Before they reached it, however, they met up with a couple of scavs running up the ramp, probably on their way to find sniper's positions so as to defend their hideout from above. They opened fire the moment they saw the strangers, paying no mind to the fact that their bullets bounced off the emerald shield the Lanterns had tossed up.

"I hate to say it," the humanoid Lantern mused, "but I am beginning to see the point the Guardians were making."

"Nobody's perfect, not even them." Hal forced the shield forward until it began to envelop the gunmen, pushing them back down the ramp. Once they'd been forced down to the lower level, they sealed off the ramp with a larger shield. The gangbangers beat their fists against it in frustration. "There's at least one more access point to this level, back that way," Hal said. "Go seal it up and check around for others. I'll look over the engine."

Lucky for him, the machine appeared to be mostly intact, with only some of the outer housing peeled away. Some tools lay scattered around it, but whomever was using them had made no obvious progress in either repairing or dismantling it. When the other Lantern came back around, Hal was kneeling in front of a large access panel that someone had pried open, inspecting the innards. "The area is secure," he informed Jordan, kneeling beside him, "and it appears that many of the scavengers outside have been subdued." He looked at the mess of wires pouring out of the machine. "Is the device still usable?"

With a sigh, Hal said, "I have no idea."

* * *

When the dust settled, over 150 cutthroat scavs had been defeated by a band of only a dozen people. There were a few bullet wounds to patch and some other minor injuries, but otherwise neither side suffered any loss of life. It was the most bloodless battle Jonah had ever participated in. _Kinda takes the fun out of it,_ he thought as he helped with moving the captured gang members to one of the intact buildings near the parking garage. Many of them had been stunned into submission, but some of them were still up and kicking...and punching and biting and whatever else they could think of doing in an effort to get free. Those that tried to pull any of that nonsense with Jonah soon got knocked out the hard way. Personally, he didn't understand why they were making such a fuss to keep the little maniacs alive, but Hal made it very clear that none of them were to be permanently harmed. _It's a lovely sentiment, _Hex said to himself, _but damned impractical._

Once all the gangbangers had been herded inside their temporary prison, Jonah went inside the garage itself, joining Hal and his fellow Green Lanterns as they busied themselves with repairing the Casimir engine. They'd been at it for hours, going over the machine inch by inch to determine what caused the original malfunction that brought Hal to this reality...and to see if it could be safely duplicated. Stiletta had been helping out where she could, and she stepped away from the others when Jonah came up the ramp. "How's things going out there, cowboy?" she asked him, hugging her thick coat to her body.

"As well as kin be expected," he said, "them skunks ain't too happy 'bout us kickin' 'em out of their home." The two of them walked over to the machine. "So, is this thing gonna do the trick or no?"

The insect-like Lantern poked its head out from behind the machine. "Very soon. Device is almost disengaged."

"Ah don't follow...yuh mean yo're turnin' it _off?"_

"Just part of it," Hal explained. He reattached some of the outer housing, then stood up to face them. "From what we can tell, Dr. Steveling and his team got a little overzealous: apparently, a true Casimir engine is only good for one use. Once it's extracted energy from the quantum vacuum and expelled it, the engine burns out. They thought they'd found away around that problem, but the truth is, they had inadvertently wired the thing so it would _never_ stop extracting energy. It just keeps cycling over and over." He twirled a finger in the air to emphasize. "Luckily, when it let out that burst that knocked me here, it burned out the mechanism that allowed it to draw power. This thing's been idling for the last four days, just waiting for somebody to give the order to expel its full load."

"Ah ain't even gonna pretend thet Ah understood a bit of thet," Jonah said.

"He means it still works," Stiletta told him, "and as soon as they finish disconnecting the energy-cycling thing from the rest of the engine, it'll be safe to turn it back on."

"Once we get rid of that piece of equipment, we should be able to control the engine with our rings and not have to worry about it sucking them dry like before," Hal continued. "All we need to do then is manipulate the quantum-energy field to make another hole in space-time, and we can slip right through."

"'We'?" Hex said. "Don't yuh mean..."

"No, you heard me right. This engine should have enough energy stored in it to open two portals, one for each of us." He put a hand on the gunfighter's shoulder, saying, "I know you told me that you didn't want me to get your hopes up, but I'm not playing around here: you're finally going home."

Jonah stared at him for a moment, then at the engine. "Ah'm...Ah cain't," he said eventually. "W-whut Ah mean is..."

Stiletta took Jonah by the hand and said, "Can I talk with you for a minute? Just the two of us?" She pulled him away from the Lanterns and led him over to the far end of the garage. The tarps had been torn down in that section, and a gray, pre-dawn light was pouring in from outside.

As soon as they were alone, the first thing Hex said was, "Ah'm not goin' back."

She put a hand over his mouth. "Don't talk, just listen. I know that you love me, and you're willing to just walk away from this chance at going home to stay with me, but...it's not right. You don't belong here, and no amount of love will change that. I had to think about that long and hard before I realized it was the truth. I wish it wasn't true, because...I'll admit it, the thought of letting go of you hurts, but it's the right thing. We may love each other, but in the long run, that still won't make this place your home."

"Don't Ah get any say in this? Ah don't want tuh leave yuh, sugar. It don't matter tuh me where Ah am, just so long as yo're there, too."

"You say that now, but what about five years from now? Or twenty-five? This isn't some bus ticket you can cash in whenever you like. If you don't go now, then that's it, no second chances. Can you live with that for the rest of your life?" Jonah turned his head away, but Stiletta wouldn't let him ignore what she was saying. She placed a hand under his chin and made him look at her. "When you love somebody, even a little, sometimes the best way to show them that is to give them up. I want you to be happy, Jonah. Not just now, but forever. And I know that if you stay here, you won't be."

He closed his eyes for a moment, taking stock of what she'd said. He'd had similar thoughts, but he'd refused to acknowledge them. _Just once, Ah'd like tuh get whut Ah want, _he thought. _Maybe someday...but not today._ When he looked at her again, tears had begun to form in his eyes, but he held them back. "If'n yuh think it's the right thing, Ah'll go...but Ah think it'll be along time afore Ah'm happy 'bout it." He reached down and patted the Magnums still sitting in his gun holsters. "Reckon Ah'll have tuh get one of them Lanterns tuh fetch muh Dragoons. Cain't go back with these things."

"I know," she answered, and opened up her coat. From one of the large inner pockets, she pulled out Jonah's old guns, carefully wrapped in one of his shirts. "I stopped by your room before we left Maple," she explained, handing them over, "just in case."

He turned the guns over in his hands. They'd been loaded with the bullets he'd bought the other day: three in one gun, two in the other. He hadn't even thought about bringing the Dragoons along, he'd had no intentions of leaving...but Stiletta knew, she knew before he did. "Maybe...maybe yuh could come with me," Hex said to her. "Yuh ain't got nothin' tyin' yuh down here, so why don't yuh..."

"And what then? I don't belong back there any more than you belong here. Can you imagine me running around in a hoop skirt...and I'd love to see you try and explain me to your girlfriend Emily."

"Her name's Emmy," he said quietly, "an' she ain't muh girlfriend...she done left me a couple months afore Ah got stuck here."

"I'm sorry. The way you've talked about her..."

"Ah still love her, if'n thet's whut yo're thinkin'. Ah've loved a lot of women over the years, fer lots of dif'rent reasons...an' Ah've never stopped lovin' any of them, deep down." He brushed a hand against her cheek. "Same goes fer yuh, Stiletta: Ah may never see yuh again, but Ah'll love yuh 'til the day Ah die."

Tears rolling down fer face, she threw her arms around his neck. "Goddamn you, Jonah," she sobbed.

He held onto her tightly, wishing that he never had to let go. "Ah think He already has, sugar."

* * *

The Green Lanterns finished their repairs not long after sunrise. Christmas Day had finally arrived, and with it a miracle for two men, one of whom had stopped believing in such things a long time ago. Jonah stood in front of the engine, Stiletta beside him and holding his hand. He'd already said a brief goodbye to those who'd come with them on the raiding party, though it didn't make a bit of difference to him one way or the other. There would only be one person he'd miss once he was gone.

Hal's own goodbyes were taking a little longer. While he didn't know these Lanterns, they knew of him. It didn't matter to them that he really wasn't _their _Hal Jordan: either way, he was a legend, and they couldn't just let him leave without telling him so. "It's been an honor to work with you, even for such a brief period," the humanoid Lantern said. "I wish you could stay, it would mean so much."

"I'm sorry, but I've already been away from home for a long time, even before I came here," Hal told them. "You could do something for me in my absence, though."

"Anything, just name it."

"When you speak with the Guardians...and I'm sure you will after this little escapade...do your best to talk them into lifting the quarantine. These people need help, not isolation, and the Corps' presence could really turn things around here. Also, give them this." With his ring, Hal made a small data disc, imprinting on it all the pertinent information about the Parallax entity, and what it had done to both him and the Corps in his reality. So far as he knew, the thing was still imprisoned in the Central Battery, but what happened once could happen again. "Make sure they look at this, it's vitally important."

Taking it from him, the tall Lantern asked, "What is it?"

"Something they forgot."

With a nod, the alien tucked it away. Hal wondered how the Guardians of this reality would react when they saw it. He turned around and looked at Jonah. The gunfighter had ditched his long coat, and the Dragoons were once again sitting in their holsters, the yellowing ivory grips standing out in contrast to his dark clothes. "Are you ready?" Hal asked him.

Jonah didn't answer, his attention still focused on Stiletta. They stood together for a moment longer, neither willing to part just yet, then shared final kiss before stepping away from each other, Stiletta moving off to one side of the machine, Jonah walking over to where Hal was waiting. "So...this is it," Hex said. "Who goes first?"

Smiling, Hal said, "I figured age before beauty."

"Very damn funny."

"Sorry, couldn't resist." He nodded towards the engine, saying, "When we get this thing started, don't hesitate, just walk forward. The rings will generate a field that'll read your chronal signature...it's like a fingerprint your body gives off, showing where and when your proper place in the timestream is. It'll help adjust the quantum energy so that it can plug you back into where you're supposed to be. You should end up near your original point of departure, but it might be a little before or after, time-wise. Brace yourself for that."

"Alright." Jonah looked down at the floor. "Reckon Ah should be thankin' yuh fer all this."

"I'm just repaying a debt to an old friend, that's all."

He picked his head back up. "Yuh won't know none of this when we meet later on, will yuh? If'n we _do_ meet, Ah mean."

"Nope, I'll be in your shoes...and remember, you didn't mention anything about this the first time, so don't say a word if you do run into me. Everything has to play out the same as before."

"Hell, Ah wouldn't know where tuh start, anyhow." His face began to cloud over with worry. "Listen, when yuh get back tuh yer end of it all...one of them Vietnam fellas said he'd read 'bout me in some book. Could yuh maybe...yuh know, take a look-see? Just tuh be sure..."

"First chance I get. I promise."

That seemed to ease his fears a bit. "Okay...reckon Ah should quit draggin' muh feet," he muttered, then held out his hand. "Take care of yerself, Hal."

"You do the same, Jonah." They shook hands. "Remember: 1878...Desecration, Arizona."

The gunfighter nodded, then turned away without another word. As he did so, the trio of visiting Lanterns aimed their rings at the Casimir engine, activating it one last time. As before, the device produced a high-pitched whine, but it was nowhere near as deafening. The emerald energy mingled with the white light from the engine, smoothing out the sparks until it became a uniform green glow from the front exhaust ports. Jonah did hesitate a moment, taking just enough time to look Stiletta's way, then stepped forward. The glow enveloped him, tinting his visage a deep shade of green, then there was a sudden flash of white around his body. Jonah began to raise his arms to shield himself from the brilliance, but he was gone before he could fully bring them up. The engine shuddered at the same time, hard enough to shake the floor.

_One down, and one to go_, Hal thought. He waited for the glow to flare back to green again, then stepped into it himself. He could feel the energy grabbing at his ring again, but it was merely a gentle tug this time. When the white flash came, he shut his eyes, but it did no good. The light seemed to tear right through his eyelids as it washed over him, then tossed him about the timestream like a leaf in the ocean. _This will work, _he told himself, _the first ride was just as rough, you can hold on..._

When the light faded, Hal found himself about to crash head-first onto a tile floor. Instinctively, he pointed his ring at it and stopped his descent inches from impact, then righted himself to find out where he'd landed up. There wasn't enough light to see by, so he created some with his ring as he hovered in the air. Though his vision was still blurry from the flash, he could make out the smooth walls of the lab, along with the scattered remains of diagnostic equipment. Both bore scorch marks from the arcs of energy the Casimir engine had thrown off before Jordan contained it. He also saw the gaping hole where part of the lab's wall had been carried away in the original blast. _Well, the location's right,_ he thought, _but how long has it been?_

"Hal? Are you all right?"

He turned around and saw John Stewart standing in the doorway to the lab. He was clad in a variant of the standard Green Lantern uniform, sans mask as always. "Where have you been?" he continued. "One minute I'm getting a distress signal from here, the next..." His dark hand cut the air. "It's like you dropped off the face of the Earth."

"No, just veered off to the left a bit," Hal said. "How long ago did you lose the signal?"

"Three hours ago. I set the ring to keep scanning for you while I helped out with restoring power. You did a great job containing the explosion, it looks like, but some of the grid got fried out from that engine screwing with it. They're still having trouble..." As he said that, the lights in the lab began to flicker back to life. "Well, would you look at that. Guess everything's back to normal."

"Hooray for the good guys." Hal set down on the ground next to his associate, his right leg buckling when he put weight on it. John steadied him, looking worried. "It's okay," Hal told him, "I'm just a little sore still from that gunshot wound."

"When did you get shot?" he asked, surprised.

"About four or five days ago."

"Hal, you weren't even technically _alive_ four or five days ago." Now John looked _really_ worried. "Are you sureyou're all right?"

Jordan flashed his fellow Green Lantern a grin. "Right as rain."

* * *

"Oh my God! What's happening to him?"

Emmylou Hartley stared in horror at the spot where Jonah Hex had stood only moments before. _This isn't real_, she thought, _this is a nightmare, it has to be._ She'd been telling herself that off and on for two months now, ever since Brett had kidnapped her off that stagecoach to St. Louis. When she bought passage, Emmy thought she was moving away from trouble: she'd decided to leave Jonah before he broke her heart yet again, as he always seemed to do. If she'd known what lay ahead of her, however, she would have stood through the heartache to spare herself the torture she'd endured after Brett got hold of her. Beaten, starved, locked in a closet for days on end, all in an effort to break her spirit and make her a part of his gang. Emmy wondered if the two other women in his "family" had gone through the same trials before giving in to his whims.

But Emmy was resolved to never give in, not even after she accidentally shot Jonah when he tried to rescue her during that robbery in the assayer's office. She held on, and when she got the chance, she ran. Brett wasn't about to let her go, though, and chased her down as she made her way back to the town of Red Dog, back to Jonah, back to the man that had saved her countless times before. And now...and now he was gone, whisked away in a blaze of red light. The afterimage still hung in front of her eyes, the shock on Jonah's face before he disappeared matching her own. The bar's patrons gaped as well, and who could blame them? This was 1875: things like this just didn't happen, not in Red Dog, not _anywhere._

"Looks like that johnny-reb decided you're not worth the trouble," Brett said. The incident had shaken him, but it wasn't enough to take his mind off why he'd come in there. He leveled his revolver at Emmy. "Don't worry, I'll save a couple shots for him in case he changes his mind."

Emmylou backed up against the bar, her mind still reeling. _There's no one left_, she thought, _nowhere else to go._ She braced her hands on the bartop, her fingers brushing against the whiskey bottle Jonah had been pouring from when she'd run in. Barely aware that she was doing it, she grabbed the bottle by the neck and swung it as hard as she could at Brett's face. The glass shattered on impact, tearing up his cheek and shards lodging in his eye. He fired blindly, missing Emmy by inches. She froze for a moment, watching him as he fell to his knees yelling in pain, then she bolted for the door. Once out in the street, she ran as fast as she could, not knowing where to, just so long as it was far from Brett. People blundered into her as they tried to figure out what all the commotion in the saloon was about. "Get out of the way!" she screamed, pushing them aside.

"Come back here, you tramp!" Brett had recovered himself enough to come after her. He emerged from the bar, gun still in hand, blood running down the side of his face. The sight of him was enough to make folks move out his way. He fired a shot at Emmy, missing again, but it was enough of a scare to make her stumble, slowing her down just long enough for him to catch up and tackle her. They wrestled in the street, Emmy doing her best to free herself from his grip, but in the end, Brett was just too strong for her. Flat on her back, choking on dust, she looked up at him as he straddled her. "You just had to make it hard, didn't you?" he growled. His injured eye was squeezed shut, and flecks of blood hung from his moustache. "Figured you'd learn to behave after a while, but it looks like I was wrong. Now I ain't got any other choice." He then shoved the barrel of the gun under her chin, saying, "End of the line, pigtails."

From behind them, a voice called out, "Get the Hell away from her, yuh yellowbellied skunk!" Brett turned his head to look at the man speaking, perhaps even shoot him for daring to interrupt, but when he saw who it was, his blood ran cold.

In the middle of the street, not far from the entrance to the Red Dog Saloon, stood Jonah Hex. The Confederate uniform was gone, replaced by a black shirt and dark blue trousers that clung to his tall frame, and black boots with oddly-thick soles. A breeze stirred Jonah's shoulder-length red hair as he glared at Brett, death in his eyes and his hands dangling inches away from the Dragoons strapped to his hips. "Get up," the bounty hunter told him. "Ah've been waitin' a damn long time tuh finish this."

Brett didn't move. He had the advantage, surely Hex saw that. All he had to do was twitch his finger and the girl would die. But the look in Jonah's eyes, the snarl on his lips...it was like staring down a bloodthirsty wolf. And if Brett didn't take him down first, the man would jump on him and tear out his throat. He quickly stood up and swung the gun around, cocking the hammer as he took aim at Hex.

Those who saw the shootout in Red Dog that day would swear they never saw Jonah Hex draw his guns. One moment the Dragoons were resting in their holsters, the next they were in Jonah's hands, the report deafening as he fired five times at Brett without hesitation. One bullet knocked the pistol from the man's hand before he cold even pull the trigger, three more drilled straight through his chest, and the last ended up squarely between the outlaw's eyes. He staggered forward a few steps, then collapsed, dead before his body even hit the ground.

"Jonah..." Emmy cried weakly as he ran over to her, falling to his knees beside her and scooping her up into his arms. She pressed her face to his chest and sobbed, barely taking note of how strange the clothes he was wearing felt, all slick and unnatural. She just wanted to reassure herself that he was there, that this wasn't a dream. Jonah was crying as well, shedding the tears that he'd refused to show Stiletta as he kissed the top of Emmylou's head, her cheeks, her lips.

"Oh God...Ah missed yuh so much," he said, his voice quivering. "Ah kept hopin' an' prayin' Ah'd get back, but it's been so long...seems like years..."

She looked up at his face, then touched his hair. It was longer now than it had been minutes before in the saloon. "What happened, Jonah?" she asked. "You disappeared, I saw it...where did you go?"

Jonah realized then that people had begun to gather around, not too closely. They were staring at him, at the clothes he was wearing. He could already hear folks whispering to each other, speculating as to what had just occurred in their small town, and waiting to hear an explanation from him. Emmy was waiting too, gazing at him with trusting eyes.

Slowly, he felt the lie forming on his lips. It was a simple lie, but one he'd repeat to everyone that asked him about the incident for the rest of his life. Gently pushing a stray lock of blonde hair from Emmy's face, he said to her, "Ah don't rightly know whut happened, sugar. All's Ah kin remember is seein' this real bright red light, then a bright green one right after. Everything in between...reckon it's just a big blur."


	10. Epilogues & Notes

**EPILOGUE (HAL)**

The sky was clear over Seattle, a bright summer sun looking down on the ships passing through Puget Sound. The tourists visiting the Space Needle that day had a perfect view of the city, and if they were lucky enough to be facing the southeast not long before noon, they would have caught sight of a streak of green zipping across the skyline. It was gone rather quickly, disappearing somewhere over the downtown area. A few minutes afterward, a man dressed in jeans and a battered leather flight jacket walked out of an alleyway and fell right into step with the sidewalk traffic.

The last few weeks had been busy ones for Hal Jordan: reconstruction of Coast City had been announced a couple days after he'd returned from the future, and as soon as the government began taking applications to fill the empty buildings, Hal signed up. At first he thought it would feel strange, living in a ready-made city almost void of residents, but after a day or two, it seemed right. He was starting from scratch, and so was Coast City. They both bore scars, but together, they would find their place in the world again. In a way, the newborn city lent him a hand with his place-finding: his proximity to Edwards Air Force Base made him think of his old flying buddy Shane Sellers, and after a long debate with himself, he finally picked up the phone and called him. Shane was shocked to hear Hal's voice, but soon the conversation fell into old familiar rhythms. It didn't take much coaxing to talk Shane into meeting him at the base for a turn in the skies, and maybe...just maybe...a chance at doing it full-time once again. But that meeting was tomorrow. Today, Hal had an appointment with another old friend, and a promise to keep.

He could have picked any city to search for the book, but Seattle seemed the most appropriate choice. After a quick consultation with a payphone directory, he headed to a place called Tony's Used Books and Magazines, not too far from where he'd landed. It was a tiny store with stacks of paperbacks filling up the front window. An elderly Filipino man with graying hair was sorting through a box of fantasy novels sitting on the counter, and he looked up when the bell on the shop's door tinkled. "Good morning...I mean afternoon," he said after checking his watch. "Help you with something?"

"I hope so. I'm trying to find a book." Hal scratched the back of his head. "Unfortunately, I don't know the title...it was printed around the late sixties, I think. Maybe early seventies."

"What's it about?"

"Jonah Hex. He was a bounty..."

The man held up a hand. "You want the Lawrence. There's others, of course, but if you want a Hex book, buy the Lawrence." He came around from behind the counter and started down one of the aisles of bookshelves, Jordan following behind. "I don't have the original from '72...they're close to impossible to find...but there was a revised edition around '93. Should be one back here." The man stopped before one of the tall cases and pulled down a thick hardback book, HEX prominent on the dust jacket. "These are out of print, too, though I read in one of the publishing trades that they might crank out a new run this year. It seems like they don't think about printing things like this unless Westerns are 'hot', like nobody gives a damn about history until they make a cable show out of it." He stopped, realizing what he'd said, then asked, "That's not why you're looking for it, is it?"

Laughing, Hal shook his head. "No, a friend of mine wanted me to pick it up. You could say he lives for Westerns."

"Well, you can tell your friend that I said he has great taste." The man handed the book over, and Hal opened the cover. Penciled lightly on the corner of the title page was the price: _$125._ Noticing his customer's wince, the storeowner told him, "Believe it or not, that's cheap. I heard of one going for five hundred a few years back."

"I understand, it's just that my cash flow is a bit of a trickle right now." He'd lost track of how much money Ollie had loaned him since he'd come back. Whatever job Hal ended up getting, the first dozen or so paychecks would probably head straight to Star City.

"Look, I can tell this really means something to you. How about we make it an even hundred, would that take some of the sting off?" Hal agreed, and they walked back up to the counter. As the man rang up the sale, he said, "If your friend's interested, I know somebody that might be willing to part with a first-edition _Hawk, Son of Tomahawk_ at a decent price."

"I'll let him know next time I see him." He paid the man and left, slipping his purchase inside his jacket and making his way to a small park not far from the bookstore. Hal found a bench under a large shade tree and settled in. Nearby, some kids played Frisbee with a dog, the early-afternoon sun shining down on them. "Well, Jonah, I got it," he said under his breath as he pulled out the book. "Time to see how everything turned out."

He opened the book, unsure of whether he should just skip to the end. Instead, he flipped to pages at random, taking in snippets of Jonah's life. There were so many things about him Hal didn't know, but now they were right here before him, good and bad. He read about Jonah's abusive father, who sold the boy to a tribe of Apaches. He came across a photo of Hex, years before his face became scarred, posing with some of his fellow scouts during his days with the Union cavalry. He had an arm around a young woman, his fiancée according to the caption, which then went on to say that she died not long after the picture was taken. Another photo only a few pages after that showed him with another cavalry, proudly flying the Stars and Bars of the Confederacy behind him. His years as a bounty hunter after the Civil War were laid out in bloody detail, intermixed with moments where the man shone through the killer. There was a brief marriage, a child, then those were swept away from his life. There was even mention of his disappearance from the town of Red Dog, along with a reproduction of the local newssheet detailing how Jonah "vanished in a burst of Hell-Fire", only to reappear minutes later "with the stink of Brimstone still clinging to the renowned Bounty-Killer". The editor of the paper was of the opinion that Hex was so mean, even the Devil didn't want to claim him.

The later years of Hex's life didn't read very different from the earlier ones. He still had his fair share of troubles (Hal laughed aloud when he came across a criminal record for the gunfighter, complete with a mug shot, that offered only the phrase "Damn Big Scar!" for distinguishing features), and his choice of company still fell on the interesting side (a photo labeled "The Graves Ranch c. 1876" showed Jonah alongside a young man that bore striking resemblance to Billy the Kid), but the man continued to do what he was best at: running down just about every variety of scum the Old West had to offer. The closer Hal got to the final pages, the more he was sure that all would end well for his old friend.

Then he came across a color photograph, the only one he'd seen so far. It showed a middle-aged man standing in front of a statue of a cowboy...one decked out in a white, spangled outfit like Gene Autry or Roy Rogers might wear. In its hand was an ivory-handled Colt .44 Dragoon, the mate holstered in the same gunbelts Hal had seen Jonah wearing in 2050. The caption beneath the photo read simply, "The author and his subject, 1987".

Hal almost dropped the book onto the grass. _It still happened? _he thought._ Jonah had seen what might become of him and it still happened? _Turning back a few pages, he read the account of the final days of Jonah Hex.

Apparently, the gunfighter had spent his twilight years in semi-retirement near Cheyenne, Wyoming. In 1904, at the ripe old age of sixty-six, he was approached by the owner of a Wild West revue with an offer to join the troupe. Jonah refused, but the owner wouldn't be denied: after a bank robber named George Barrow killed Jonah in cold blood, the body was stolen by the revue owner and his cronies, murdering a professor writing Hex's memoirs in the process. They stuffed the body, dressed it in the garish outfit they had tailor-made for the gunfighter, and began displaying it in their sideshow. Not long after, the owner himself was murdered, and the body of Jonah Hex stolen once again, passing from one person to the next for over eighty years, all of them unaware that the cowboy statue they possessed was really a well-preserved corpse. It wasn't until the body was accidentally knocked over and the skeletal armature revealed that the truth was known.

Even then, Hex still couldn't be put to rest: a legal battle ensued between the body's current owners and Jonah's widow, a Comanche woman named Tall Bird. She was well over a century old, and wished to have her late husband cremated. When it was finally settled and custody awarded to Tall Bird, it was discovered that the warehouse storing the corpse until the verdict was decided had misplaced the body. By the time the revised edition of the book was published, Jonah Hex's remains were still missing, the victim of a paperwork snafu.

Hal felt sick. The man deserved better than that. He was no hero, but he at least deserved a funeral, not some strange wandering afterlife like something out of a _Twilight Zone _episode. _Maybe they've found him by now, _Hal thought_, it's been over a decade since this was published._ His gut told him different, though: it seemed Jonah's fate to be lost, through all the various incarnations of reality. It was a sad, horrible way to end a life...

He then remembered what he'd said when Jonah's spirit was being crushed by those same thoughts: _Everything counts._ Hex's final fate did nothing to diminish his life, it only added to the legend. To judge his entire career by his last moment was wrong, and Hal knew that, despite what he'd learned, he would never think of him that way. He'd remember Jonah Hex as a haunted man, to be sure, but one that was also fiercely loyal to those he cared about, and willing to do whatever it took to get the job done. He'd also remember him as a friend...and who was to say that he wouldn't meet his friend again? _The flow of time is very strange_, he'd told Jonah. They'd already run into each other twice now. Perhaps someday there would be a third time, free of paradoxes and desperate situations, when the two of them could sit down, share a drink, and swap stories about all the adventures they'd had since their last meeting.

Jordan looked down at the book in his lap. From the cover, a grainy photograph of Hex looked back. He was seated and dressed in Confederate gray, his Dragoons drawn and held before him. The gunfighter's eyes, though half-hidden by shadow, seemed to be daring the photographer to take the picture.

"Goodbye, Jonah," he said. "Hope to see you again sometime."

**EPILOGUE (JONAH)**

The first chance he had, he burned the clothes. Jonah wanted no reminders of his life in 2050, no evidence that he'd ever been anywhere else but his own time. The only things he kept were the Dragoons, of course, and the gunbelts he'd taken off his own corpse. While the leather was cracking from centuries of neglect, they seemed to be in serviceable condition for now. He found a man, a former son of the Confederacy like himself, that was willing to part with an old uniform for a reasonable sum. It wasn't the same as his original cavalry coat, but it was close enough.

He soon discovered that it would take more than a change of clothes to restore any sense of normalcy to his life. After Emmylou had been cleared of the criminal charges against her, and Jonah had rounded up the rest of Brett's gang (collecting a tidy fee for his services in the process), the two of them left Red Dog behind. The spark of love was still there between them, but that wasn't why they stayed together: they clung to each other emotionally like lost children, both desiring the comfort that familiarity brought, neither wanting to be alone with the memories of their personal traumas. Sometimes Emmy would talk about what Brett had done to her, about the fear that still dwelled in her heart, and Jonah would hold her and kiss her and do his best to show that she was safe now, the man was dead and would never touch her again. It helped her over time, but for Jonah, there was no consolation. He refused to speak about what occurred during his brief disappearance, even when he woke up in the middle of the night, crying out in confusion because he couldn't remember where he was. There were moments when he'd just stop what he was doing and stare around him, sure that what he saw was a dream or hallucination, that he was still trapped in a world where it wasn't even safe to walk out in the rain or drink from an open stream.

After a few months, his odd behavior began to put a strain on their relationship. One night as they lay in bed, Emmy pressed him about what really happened that day in Red Dog. "I hear you talking in your sleep," she said, "but it doesn't make any sense. There's something you're holding back from me, and I want to know why."

Stubborn as always, he replied, "Ah told yuh, Ah don't remember nothin'."

Emmy wasn't about to let him off that easy. "Jonah...who's Stiletta?"

He tried his best to not let the shock show on his face. Hex knew that he had a tendency to mumble things when he was having bad dreams, but he didn't know he'd let that much slip out. "Ah cain't tell yuh," he said, the words sounding weak and pathetic as he spoke them.

"If you loved me, you'd tell me."

"Ah _do_ love yuh, darlin'...an' thet's why Ah won't." He left her in the morning, checking out of the hotel they'd been staying at and never looking back. It was an easier choice for him than trying to live with that lie hanging between them. Unfortunately, being out on the trail alone did nothing to help stop the nightly visitations from ghosts of people that hadn't even been born yet...or may never be born, if he understood what Hal told him right.

By the beginning of the Centennial Year, Jonah had wandered down the Texas/New Mexico way. The man had become uncomfortable in his own skin, unsure of how to go on with his life in the past now that he'd seen the future. He started drinking again, not as heavily, but enough to blur his memory of what may or may not happen. It was hard to look at the world around him and think that, in less than two centuries, it could all be gone, wiped away by both progress and foolishness. Slowly, Hex began to fall away from his old path, and he soon found himself on the wrong side of the cell door more often than not, living the life of an outlaw instead of a bounty hunter. That in turn led him to places that, in his previous life, he never would have thought existed. They had always been there, of course, but after the things he'd experienced in 2050, the strangeness of his own time became more evident: worm creatures, talking bears...not to mention a little troll of a man that could raise the dead.

Though he didn't know it, Doc "Cross" Williams did Jonah a favor. What the ugly skunk did to unsuspecting folks in general was nothing short of blasphemous, but when he resurrected the corpse of Wild Bill Hickok just for a bit of revenge, he inadvertently hit an area a bit too close to home for Jonah, especially with the silly fringed and embroidered outfit Doc made the dead man wear. It was Jonah's worst nightmare come to life...or un-life, rather. To make matters worse, the Doc tried to do the same to Hex, and that just didn't sit well with him. Once he'd laid old Hickok to rest with a pair of bullets to the braincase (and another pair for the Doc's knees), Jonah found himself sleeping a lot better at night. He knew that the Hickok corpse wasn't his own, but facing the thing head-on in a gunfight the way he did put something in his soul at ease.

Not long after that, Jonah began his journey back to the "civilized" world, doing his level best to rebuild his reputation as a hunter of men. He even managed to find a more suitable replacement for his old cavalry uniform along the way. Despite the time he'd spent out on the fringe of society, he soon found that little had changed in his absence. There would always be a need for men like him, ones that weren't afraid to get their hands bloody in the name of justice...and for now, that knowledge would have to be enough to get him by. It had taken a couple years, but Hex had finally made peace with the thought that, try as he might, he'd never be the same man he was before he'd walked into the Red Dog Saloon. The months he'd spent in that hellish future had left a scar on him as deep and permanent as the one on his face, and if he could go on living with that twisted memento staring back at him from the shaving mirror every day, then he could live with the secret one in his mind and heart.

Time passed, as it is wont to do, and one evening Jonah rode into a town called Morrow deep in the Arizona Territory, dog-tired and in dire need of a bath. He wasn't normally inclined to such things, but after getting caught in a sudden downpour and subsequent mudslide two days previous, he figured soaking his old bones for a few minutes wouldn't kill him...providing he got out quick enough. The local hotel fulfilled his needs nicely, and he even sprung for a shave and haircut at the barber down the way the next morning. When he walked to the sheriff's office afterward to check for wanted posters, he looked almost respectable. Almost.

As he perused the papers tacked to the wall outside, the sheriff stepped out. He recognized Hex immediately and said, "You lookin' for work, bounty hunter?"

"Just 'til muh inheritance comes through," Jonah deadpanned. "Figure Ah must have a rich uncle somewheres thet'll kick the bucket soon."

"You and me both." He leaned against the doorframe, saying, "Got a job that's right up your alley, but it ain't on that there wall."

"Ah'm listenin'."

"Blond-haired fella named McAllister, he done shot up some folks 'bout a week ago, includin' one of my deputies. He lit out right after, headed north into the desert. We ain't been able to turn up hide nor hair of 'im since. I sent a wire to this little town just north of here, tellin' 'em to keep an eye out, but he ain't showed so far. Figure maybe he's tryin' to wait us out."

"Stupid move. This time of year, desert's hot enough tuh fry the Devil's tail off." He hitched his thumbs in his new gunbelt. The old pair he'd brought back with him from the future had finally given up the ghost a couple months ago, and he was back down to only one holster, the left-hand gun tucked beneath his belt like before. "How much yuh offerin?"

"I can give you two hundred myself, and if I pass around the kitty, I might be able to get you a bit more."

Hex thought about it for a moment, then said, "Thet'll do fine." He headed back to the hotel to gather his gear and horse, then hit the trail. The rain the other day hadn't reached that far north, luckily, and there were still a few signs of McAllister's passing to be found. For hours, Jonah scanned his eyes over the country about him, searching for anything that would point him in the direction of his quarry. The heat of the day tore at him, threatening to boil him right out of his skin, but he didn't let it deter him in the least. As the sun moved closer to the west, the gunfighter began to think about making camp for the night, preferably in a shady spot. Those thoughts went right out of his head, however, when he saw movement off to the west: vultures...and they were circling.

_Could be a stray cow, or maybe even a hobbled mustang,_ he thought, turning his mount in the direction of the birds. _An' on the other hand, might be a man. _Standing in the saddle, he drove the horse to a full gallop. There was the possibility that whomever or whatever lay out there was already dead, but if they weren't, then time was of the essence. _Ain't many things worse than dyin' alone an' thirsty. Ah'm not a sociable man by nature, an' Ah'd just as soon cuss a man as look at 'im, but this is dif'rent. An' besides, could be Ah've found the man Ah've been lookin' fer!_

The vultures appeared to be focused over a dry riverbed. Jonah rode alongside, and they fled at his approach, which was fine by him. Saved him the trouble of having to shoot them. He spurred his horse down the bank, but soon found himself almost thrown from the saddle as the animal reared up, veering away from an emerald shaft of light shooting up from out of the riverbed. He cursed and did his best to control the horse, then moved with caution towards the bank again, unsure of just what was going on. As he peered over the side, he saw a man with brown hair sprawled out below, dressed in clothes that had no Earthly reason for existing in 1878. The uniform was slightly different from the last time Hex had seen it, but not so different that he couldn't recognize an old friend.

_Well, would yuh look at thet? _Jonah thought_. Hal Jordan, as Ah live an' breathe._ A grin began to spread over his face, and he was about to call out a greeting, but then the Green Lantern raised his right hand. Another beam of light bolted past the gunfighter's head, missing it by inches and spooking the horse again. All thoughts of being friendly left his mind as he cursed once more and yelled, "Ease up, boy! Yuh tryin' tuh get a man killed?"

"Move one inch closer, cowboy, and _dead _is just what you'll be!" The black-and-green clad man propped himself up with his left hand, the ring on his right still trained on Hex. Sweat was pouring down the Hal's face, and it looked like he was on his way to a decent sunburn, as well. The mask he wore hid a good portion of his face, but Jonah could read his expression well enough to see that Hal meant every word he said.

Jonah was stunned, he couldn't believe what he was hearing. Why was Jordan acting like this? Hex was about to ask if the man had lost his mind from the heat, then he suddenly realized what year it was, and _where_ he was...and he knew right then, even though the sheriff hadn't told him such, that the little town to the north he'd mentioned was called Desecration. A cold chill ran down his spine. While Jonah knew who the man was, Hal Jordan..._this_ Hal Jordan...had never met him before. Their positions had been reversed from the last time, and unless Jonah wanted to tempt fate, he'd have to keep his trap shut about all he knew, or else risk screwing up the entire timestream.

Hal tried to stand, but he just didn't have the strength to pick himself up off the ground. He looked wasted, and Jonah wondered just how long the man had been out here in the middle of nowhere. One of the birds, seeing him struggle, dipped a little lower as it circled overhead with its brethren. The motion caught Hal's attention, and he asked in a raspy voice, "Those vultures up there...what are they doing?"

The bounty hunter didn't respond right away. When he finally did, he took account of every word he said before he spoke it, afraid of letting the wrong ones slip out. "They're waitin' on y'all tuh die, stranger." It was odd to call him that, after spending almost a week in his company all those years ago, but until Hal said his name outright, Hex would have to play dumb. "Looks tuh me like they might not have long tuh wait, either."

His right arm began to sag, as did the rest of him. "I don't know what you're talking about..." he managed to get out before collapsing, falling back onto the riverbed.

The irony of what Hal had said struck Jonah as funny, and he couldn't help but smile. "Ah'll bet yuh don't," he muttered, and swung out of the saddle. He didn't know how the Green Lantern had come to be in such a mess, but it was obvious to him that it wasn't a planned excursion. He grabbed a canteen and headed down the side of the bank, saying under his breath, "Comin' out in the desert without a horse...without proper clothes...why, son, it's a miracle Ah found yuh breathin'!" He soon found that his lecturing fell on deaf ears: Hal had passed right out, finally giving in to the oppressive heat. _Figured he would, _Jonah thought as he knelt down, _didn't seem like he had much push left in him. _He pulled out an old bandana, soaked it with water from the canteen, and laid it across Jordan's forehead. He then sloshed some more down the man's throat. _Judgin' by his burn, he's been out in the sun eight, ten hours, bareheaded. Only a durn fool would try a stunt like thet._

But he knew Hal Jordan was no fool. A bit uppity maybe, as most Yankees were, but he had a good heart, and a willingness to go out of his way to help folks, whether they liked it or not. Whatever reason Jordan had for being out there, so far from his proper time and place, it was a good one. And Hex also knew that he'd soon find himself entangled in that reason as well, at least for a day. Jonah wished that the Green Lantern had told him more during their last time together, so he'd know what to expect, but things never worked that way for him. He'd just have to get through it like he always did, relying on his quick wits and quicker guns. At least this time, he'd have a friend by his side to get through it with.

Jonah looked up at the sky. The vultures had gotten the hint that the Green Lantern had been taken off the menu and moved on. A lucky break, since it meant that he wouldn't have to worry about wrestling Hal's unconscious form onto the horse. They would make camp there for now, and as soon as Jordan recovered, the two of them could get down to whatever business awaited them in the town of Desecration.

"Reckon Ah don't know whut'll happen when we get there, Hal," he said, "but Ah know it's gonna be a Hell of a day."

**...THE END OF THE BEGINNING...**

_Well, kids, we made it. Some days it looked like we'd never get here, but we did. All told, this story took eight months to write, from the first "Holy shit, that's the solution!" thought, through all the research and material-gathering, to the final words I'm typing right now. Believe it or not, that's a fast turnaround for me, at least for something this long and involved. Along the way, I've made quite a few new friends myself out there in Internet-Land, in addition to acquiring a rep as the biggest, craziest Hex-nut that ever logged onto a message board. Hey, everybody needs a hobby, right?_

_If you'll indulge me a moment, I want to thank some jaspers that helped out with the madness I tossed up here. Firstly, thanks to the scads of people on the DC Message Boards who supported me and listened to my rants as I pounded this out, especially Dragonbat AKA Esther-Channah (my very own mentor), Silverager (for spreading the word about this fic like wildfire...even when he was in the dang hospital!), and all the regulars at the Roundyard Saloon (you skunks know who you are!). Thanks also to Kevin for playing guinea pig during the Great Hex-periment, Bill for the technical assist (and keeping it short), and Justin Gray (yes, THAT Justin Gray) for allowing me to post a link to this on his Paperfilms forum -- a classy man, I hope to meet him for real some day. Last but never least, thanks to my husband Jamin, who put up with me staring at the monitor for all these months and accidentally ignoring him when I should have been snuggling on the couch. Matter of fact, everybody else thank him too -- if it hadn't been for his willingness to let me do what I'm good at, you wouldn't have ever read this. He is the last true Southern gentleman._

_One more thing before we move on to the notes. A couple folks have expressed dismay that "The Long Road Home" was wrapping up -- reckon you thought I'd drag it out forever, eh? Well, for those of you that don't want the party to end, I've got news: it won't be. A couple weeks back, I ran across a thread on the DCMB asking for fanfic writers. I checked into it, and it turned out the guy had been reading this fic on the side...and he wanted it for a new fanfiction site he's starting. It's called DC2, and basically it's monthly fanfic stories, all bound together by its own internal continuity -- we all answer to editors and have to check with other writers before borrowing characters, etc. While it's up in the air whether "The Long Road Home" will be part of DC2 continuity or just an Elseworlds, it's gotten me a job writing (wait for it!) Weird Western Quarterly. Yup, I'm gonna play with the whole dang DC Western stable now. The series won't start until early 2006, but in the meantime, check out the link to their site under my profile and poke around. Better yet, sign up for a writing gig, and be part of the DC2 experience!_

**NOTES FROM "THE ROAD"**

First, a clarification: More than one person has mentioned the events featured in Justice League Europe Annual #2 as a possible, in-continuity way that Jonah got home (for those that don't know, the whole issue was a big time-travel brouhaha, and at one point, Metamorpho popped over to 2050 and ran into Hex). There's one problem with that solution: it didn't happen. The gag in that issue was that the time-travel snafu wouldn't happen for another 10 years, so all those scenes featured weren't even occurring in current time -- the Metamorpho that met Hex wasn't the present-time Metamorpho. And then to make matters _really_ confusing, the incident that would have caused all those guys to get bounced around time in 10 years was _stopped_ before it even _happened_, negating every single scene in the damn book! To quote Waverider, "Let us simply say that I closed off an unproductive loop of history, and spared you all some difficulty." Long story short: Waverider hates Jonah and considers him "unproductive", so Metamorpho never met him (at least in _this _reality!). I blame Keith Giffen.

Second, an acknowledgement: Markmark261 sent me a link to an old, unused proposal by Alan Moore called "Twilight of the Superheroes", circa 1987. The project fell through because he left DC, but it appears that it would have been at least as large as "Crisis on Infinite Earths" in scope -- I never finished reading the whole proposal, it's HUGE -- and dear Mr. Moore was just as concerned with Jonah's fate as I am, mentioning that "This might even be an opportunity to return Jonah Hex to his original western continuity...It would also be convenient to explain the so far unassigned radioactive hellworld that Hex's adventures have been set in as one of the maybe-Earths that exist..." Sound familiar? I'd never heard of the thing beforehand, but I'm mentioning it here because I don't want anybody thinking that I dared to steal from Alan Moore. It's a shame this never came to be, it would have saved me so much trouble. Okay, now that we've gotten that out of the way, on to chapter notes...

**PROLOGUE**

- With the exception of two lines, the exchange between Emmylou, Brett, and the "old" Jonah is verbatim from Jonah Hex #92. Obviously, the dream stuff with "future" Hex watching from the sidelines, the "corpse" Jonah, and the bar going kablooey is my doing.

**1: HOW SOON IS NOW?**

- The opening phrase of "He was a hero to some, a villain to others..." is actually from the old tagline for the Jonah Hex series. I loved the irony that it applied to Hal now as well.

- Since this takes place between Green Lantern: Rebirth #6 and Green Lantern (vol. 4) #1, I had to make some suppositions about what Hal was doing before he got his Coast City digs and new job. Staying with Ollie made sense, as did Kyle inviting him back to Oa.

- The brief exchange between Bruce and Hal comes from GL: Rebirth #6. And since I knew we'd get a partly-rebuilt Coast City by GL #1, I mentioned that the government was talking about it so it wouldn't look like an out-of-the-blue thing.

- It's mentioned in an old Who's Who entry that John Stewart did stop wearing his mask "for he had nothing to hide". That stuck in my head, so I tossed it in.

- Again, according to Who's Who, there are a dozen STAR Labs across the globe, including one in San Diego. The earthquake mentioned occurred in Aquaman (vol. 4) #15, and I figured it would be unfair to not acknowledge it.

- The stuff about quantum vacuums and the Casimir engine is based on real physics theories -- I did B.S. the idea about using it to travel through spacetime, however.

**2: IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD**

- It's open to debate whether or not a Green Lantern retains his uniform when his ring totally runs out of juice -- Geoff Johns says no (as evidenced by GL #3) but for the purposes of my fic, I decided yes. All the functions I described for the ring are ones I discovered while trying to answer that damn question one way or another, so I wanted to make sure the reader understood that those options were null and void.

- Flyboy and Baldy, as well as the entire Slabberz gang, are my own invention, though skunks just like them are scattered throughout the HEX series. And for the record, I discovered after I started this story that "fug" was first used as a substitute for "fuck" by Norman Mailer. Reckon I ain't as clever as I thought.

- Maple International Shipping & Storage was named in honor of T.M. (The Mad) Maple, old-school fanboy and frequent contributor to virtually every DC lettercolumn, including Jonah's. The complex was invented almost whole-hog by myself, which I'll go into later.

- Yes, Jonah really does call people "skunks" and "owlhoots" on a regular basis. It's his thing.

- For you Hex-nuts wondering why Jonah's wearing a long blue trenchcoat instead of his "Road Reapers" jacket, it got shredded around Hex #15, and replaced by the longer coat in #17...which was fine by me, I hated that Reaper jacket!

- Jonah's future guns are .357 Magnum Ruger Blackhawks, as specified in Hex #8 -- while not exactly "Dirty Harry" guns, they're close enough for the reference.

- I'll admit, I stole the gag about tearing off cigarette filters from another gunslinger: Roland of Gilead from Stephen King's Dark Tower series. It seemed like something Jonah would do as well...and he really did always seem to have wooden matches throughout the Hex book, I never saw him use a lighter.

**3: DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY**

- Let me clarify some things about the warehouse complex: almost all of it, including many of the characters, was created by me. In Hex #18, it starts with Jonah and Stiletta going to visit Mookie and "her old man", and ends in a warehouse that was converted into living space by Vance and Marya, who had decorated the place with old carnival junk (hence the reason Jonah's stuffed corpse is there). That was all I had to work with -- I didn't even know if that warehouse was where Jonah and Stiletta were heading to, if they were still in the Seattle area, or what Mookie, her unnamed paramour, and Marya looked like -- Vance got maybe four panels, one holding a medical bag. Throw in Giffen's muddled artwork, and you can see the battle I had to wage. So 99 of Maple, right down to the name (and including Cutter and Lewis), was pure invention and the other 1 was what little I could glean from that last issue.

- The motorized wheelchair was seen in Hex #18 as well -- figured I should mention it even though I wasn't going to use it. Cutter's yarn about what happened to Jonah during Thanksgiving is a super-short version of that issue.

- The bit about radioactive snow is an extrapolation: throughout the series, they say all the water is poison, and in the first issue, they do show a guy literally melting in a rainstorm. No mention is made of whether or not the snow is harmful (we never even see snow until that final issue) but I figured it would be to a lesser degree. Also because of that, I added a transparent bodysuit under Stiletta's skimpy costume to go with the "zone suits" that were sometimes mentioned -- it never made sense to me that, if the weather's so lethal now, why is she running around half-naked?

- The Batman of New York was seen in Hex #11-12 -- no relation to Bruce or any of the Bat-family (nope, not even Terry McGinnis!) but he did find the original Batcave.

- Stiletta's story about her father, Reinhold Bornsten, and how he pulled Jonah into the future is a combination of info scattered throughout the Hex series. The bit about the government hounding Stiletta and her mom after Bornsten's disappearance, however, is extrapolation on my part -- she was shown to be on her grandparents' farm when the bombs dropped. Her age is a guess based on her appearance currently and in that flashback, though Jonah really is "pushing forty": he was born in 1838, so he would have been thirty-seven in 1875.

- Hal's recollection of how he met Jonah in 1878 is a condensed version of Justice League of America #198-199...and yes, it really was stated as 1878 in the comic, just as the Hex series mentions numerous times that Jonah got pulled out of 1875. Paradoxes abound!

- The story about how Jonah found his own corpse is right from the final pages of Hex #18. The description of the corpse is compiled from its various appearances over the years: the rhinestones on the back of the costume are mentioned but never seen during its original appearance in 1978's Jonah Hex Spectacular ("Your own name emblazoned across the back in genuine simulated rhinestone diamonds!" the revue owner boasts to Jonah) and the Dragoons sitting in the twin holsters are identified by Jonah himself when he finds the corpse -- his line of "Them's (gasp) my Dragoons!" indicates to me that they weren't later-made replicas, but the same ones he'd gotten rid of centuries before. The supposition about using the skeleton as an armature comes from Secret Origins #21: when the corpse gets busted open, you can plainly see a spinal cord sticking out of the neck! As for Jonah's not-so-good reaction to this bit of news...the series ends with Jonah sitting in front of the thing, just staring at it, so I had to decide whether the long-term effect would be good or bad on him. Considering how much shit he'd been through for the past 18 issues, as well as the personal problems he'd been having _before_ he got dragged into the future (along with the heavy drinking that he is honestly prone to) I decided the man falling apart wasn't out of the question -- seriously, how would _you _take news like that?

**4: COFFIN VARNISH AND COWBOY KILLERS**

- For those wondering what exactly the title means, "coffin varnish" is slang for rotgut whiskey, and a "cowboy killer" is an unfiltered cigarette. So the title really reads "Whiskey and Cigarettes"...not nearly as violent as it sounds, eh?

- Jonah's name being spraypainted on the door to his quarters is an in-joke -- the logo for the Hex series was just his last name done up in this sloppy graffiti style, usually in red.

- The bit about Jonah being left-handed is true -- it's mentioned in the lettercolumn for Jonah Hex: Two-Gun Mojo #2, referring to a note in the preview copy for issue #1. Being a lefty myself, I think that's cool, and I ain't gonna argue.

- The scene where Jonah blows up at Stiletta is pretty tense, but I still managed to slip in another in-joke: his line of "Ah ain't got no friends" once again goes back to the tag from Jonah's old book, which includes the phrase "He had no friends, this Jonah Hex..." And you have no idea how good it felt to vent through Jonah when I had him pounding on the wall of his quarters -- I did my best to not let it show, but _damn_, I enjoyed screaming at DC by proxy!

- Soder is the fictional name of a cola used in the Superman books -- the Batman books also have a unique soda brand called Zesti.

**5: LATE-NIGHT JAWJACKIN'**

- All of the folks in the Red Dog Saloon during the second dream sequence (with the exception of Lewis and the talking corpse, of course) are characters that have appeared in various Jonah Hex stories over his long career...you wouldn't think that a guy that ugly could get so many women!

- When I started this, the question of whether or not Jonah and Stiletta had a relationship was unclear -- considering his track record, I thought for sure they had a thing going. Then I found a scene in Hex #17 that laid it out cold for me: the two of them are in a bit of a hairy situation, and after Stiletta makes some pessimistic comment, Jonah says, "You tryin' to say you love me, sugar?" To which she replies, "Love you?" So I figured from there that Jonah probably had feelings for her, but never really voiced it.

- The diagonal scars on Jonah's back pertain to a specific incident: in a flashback in Jonah Hex #7, a young Jonah tangles with a puma in order to save an Indian chief, and a caption states that "its claws dug long, bloody furrows up and down his back".

- For the record, there were a few "masked men" back in DC's Old West, most notably Nighthawk and El Diablo. I figured, coming from an era of outlaws, Jonah would probably eye folks like that with suspicion.

- It's never really stated, aside from the year, just when Jonah arrived in the future -- though the series ends around Thanksgiving, the starting point is unclear, so I left it unsaid.

- There are two lines in here that were said by Hal in Justice League of America #199: "Hex, you're a menace" and (original phrasing) "I'm glad I don't have to count you an enemy". The latter I made sure I slipped in, because in the comic, after Hal says that to Jonah, the next panel is simply Jonah looking over at the Green Lantern with this funny look in his eye, no word balloons or anything. It seemed strange until I starting doing this fic, when I thought, "Well, maybe he's looking at Hal funny because Hal told him that in 2050 as well."

- The bit about Hal being an alcoholic comes from 1989's Emerald Dawn miniseries, though I'm not sure if the entire story is still in-continuity.

**6: THE COWBOY AND THE HERO GO TO TOWN**

- Yup, Jonah got stuck at a temperance farm once, back in Jonah Hex #83. That's also the issue where he did indeed toss his Dragoons into a lake while on a bender -- getting dumped by Mei Ling and Emmylou Hartley at the same time didn't sit well with him. The next issue, he went to a gunsmith to pick up new irons (a Colt Peacemaker and Smith & Wesson Schofield, to be exact), and when the man couldn't believe what Hex had done with his old guns, Jonah snapped, "Ah just kinda had one nip too many, thet's all! An' first thing Ah knowed, they'd kinda dropped in!"

- The names of the settlements mentioned by Jonah are my own invention, with the exception of Crystal Palace. That was from a throwaway line by Stiletta in Hex #5.

- The Lotus drug first appeared in Hex #3, and Soames have been around since the first issue, with a full explanation of what they were in #4.

**7: A MOMENT OF CLARITY**

- Comic-book time is tricky: nobody seems to agree on how fast or slow DC time moves relative to real time, and I personally don't believe in that sliding "10 years ago" theory. The rule of thumb I used for the dates in this is the "1:4" theory -- 1 year DC time equals 4 years in real time -- therefore, Coast City's destruction was 12 years ago for us, but only 3 years ago for Hal.

- Newstime is a fictional magazine in the DCU. The monument described on the cover -- a slender tower with a memorial flame -- is based on the one erected by the heroes near the remains of Coast City. The statues were added by myself for this alternate version.

- Hal's account of his fight with Mongul is taken from GL (vol. 3) #46 -- there is a moment when Hal collapses and, if he hadn't rolled at the last second, he would have been killed...Hell, he was even _thinking_ about dying.

- Jonah really had seen Superman before...or rather, he'd seen the pre-Crisis Superboy. In Hex #10 (and repeated in Legion of Super-Heroes #23), a Legion time-bubble pops out in 2050, right above Jonah. It lingers long enough for him to get a good look at Superboy, Dawnstar, Shadow Lass, and Element Lad before disappearing. A tad shaken, Jonah holds his head and thinks, _Ah shoulda knowed better'n to let thet jasper buy me all them drinks!_

- The info regarding the cyborg Superman, his deception of the JLA, and the destruction of Coast City was culled from 1993's "Reign of the Supermen" arc.

- The Fort Charlotte Massacre goes all the way back to Weird Western Tales #29, and has come back to haunt Jonah many times over his career.

- Though I'm unsure of when it occurred comics-wise, the disbanding of the JSA is summarized in the DC Comics Encyclopedia by DK Publishing.

- If I have to explain Parallax, Emerald Twilight, and Zero Hour to you, then I freaking quit.

- As far as I know, there was never an "emergency frequency" set up by the Corps, but considering the vast amount of space they had to patrol, it seemed logical that they would have some system like that in place.

- The Conglomerate (along with their East Coast variant the Combine) was a Mafia-type group that appeared throughout the Hex series.

- Harris and his buddies from Vietnam were introduced in Hex #2, more victims of Bornsten's muddling with time. The military installation and the machine-hounds also made their first appearance then.

- The Yankees and other soldiers under glass Jonah saw were in Hex #1: "Bluebellies! Cain't think of a more deservin' place fer them tuh end up!"

**8: UPON A MIDNIGHT CLEAR**

- Jonah's Civil War recollection is based on an actual event: a relative of my husband's was a medic during World War II, and he went through a similar night during the Normandy invasion. War is Hell, no matter what century it takes place.

- Yup, Hal's boldly gone where no man's gone before with at least one alien gal, a fellow GL named Arisia. I've heard that he may have bagged a couple others too, but that's Hal's business.

- There are certain things you have to try and work into every Jonah Hex story: drinking, cursing, some crack regarding Jonah's looks (either from himself or someone else), at least one innocent death, a roll in the hay with a pretty girl (or at least a kiss), and the words "skunk", "owlhoot", and "Holy Hannah". I think I managed to hit all these points!

**9: TIME HAS COME TODAY**

- The three Lanterns are not representative of any DCU alien races -- I didn't want to use a known species and screw up some detail.

- The green horse, believe it or not, goes back to that Justice league story again: when Hal and Jonah are heading to Desecration, Hal is riding a horse created by his ring. Guess he didn't remember that he could fly yet!

- One of the Vietnam-era soldiers did have a book on Old West gunfighters, which included a section on Jonah, and it even mentioned his disappearance from Red Dog. No title or author is mentioned, however.

- Though it isn't stated in the fic, John Stewart also met Jonah: they ran into each other in 1879, a year after Hal's visit, during Crisis on Infinite Earths. Jonah even mentioned that he'd already met a Green Lantern, "only he wasn't no colored man."

- Emmylou's ordeal after leaving Jonah is detailed in scenes from Jonah Hex #80-92...and everything that occurs after Emmy's line of "Oh my God! What's happening to him?" is brand-new, the final outcome of a twenty-year-old cliffhanger. You're welcome.

**EPILOGUE (HAL)**

- I did my best to make this final scene with Hal dovetail right into the new Green Lantern series, which was already up to issue #4 when I wrote it. This takes place the day before GL #1's opening shot of Hal and Shane at Edwards.

- The owner of Tony's Used Books and Magazines is based on Tony DeZuniga, one of the creators of Jonah Hex and the artist for most of the gunfighter's career.

- Secret Origins #21 is the first appearance of Professor Lawrence, historian and author of the "definitive book" on Jonah Hex (no title is ever given, but Deadshot #4 shows a partly-obscured cover with the word HEX in large print above Lawrence's name). The publishing history is taken from various Hex milestones over the years: 1972 was his first appearance in All-Star Western #10, and in 1993 Vertigo's Jonah Hex: Two-Gun Mojo came out...and of course, 2005 marks the second volume of his self-titled comic.

- _Hawk, Son of Tomahawk_ was the autobiography of one of Jonah's contemporaries, the son of a Revolutionary War hero who gained fame of his own right.

- With the exception of the photo of Lawrence with the stuffed Jonah, all the pictures in the book are ones that have been shown in various Hex stories over the years: the shot of Jonah during his days as a scout first appeared in Jonah Hex #65, the Civil War photo comes from Weird Western Tales #22, the cover shot is in Jonah Hex: Riders of the Worm and Such #1, and both the mug shot (complete with "description") and the dated one of him posing with "The Kid" are from #3 of that same miniseries.

- The tale of Jonah's death and strange fate starts in the Jonah Hex Spectacular and continues into Secret Origins #21 -- the latter book ends with Lawrence promising Jonah's corpse that they'd get him out of the amusement park it was found in. I'd always had this poignant little scene in mind for after that, with the body finally being cremated, but as I was pulling together materials for this I discovered that the body was still around, having been spotted in The Kingdom #2 a couple years back. Sadly, I had to bend to continuity's will, so I let Jonah get lost once again. Someday, old friend, we'll put you to rest...

**EPILOGUE (JONAH)**

- There wasn't much work involved with this part, since all I was doing was filling in the blanks starting from the old Jonah Hex series, through the Vertigo years, and into the Justice League story. I liked using his time in the future as an explanation for why Tim Truman's version of Hex looks so different from the traditional -- his hair's longer, he's got two gunbelts now, and of course a completely different uniform -- and since there are things during the Vertigo period that point to it taking place around 1876 or after, it fits time-wise as well. I then had to slowly shift his looks back to the traditional version to fit with both his appearance in the Justice League story from 1982 and the new 2005 series. And it wasn't until I was checking stuff for this fic that I realized how similar the Hickok zombie looked to the stuffed Jonah, so I had to call attention to that.

- The town of Morrow is named for the late Gray Morrow, an artist with a unique, soft style that graced the pages of Jonah Hex #90-92 and Secret Origins #21, as well as a cover or two for Jonah back in the day.

- The details of what Jonah was doing before he ran into Hal in 1878 are vague: all that was said was he'd been heading north, following the week-old trail of an unnamed man since sunrise, so I crafted a scene accordingly.

- With the exception of two lines where Jonah refers to Hal by name, all of the dialogue after Hex spots the vultures is from Justice league of America #198 -- it's funny to read that story now after writing this fic, because now some lines come off with double meanings (like Jonah blurting out after Hal says he doesn't remember his own name, "_Whut? _Y'mean yuh don't _know?_ Heck, boy, if _you_ don't, how should _I?" _-- honest statement, or covering his tracks?) If you can find the issues, pick them up and see for yourself how it all turns out.

_Wow, did you really read all those notes? You're crazier than me -- hope I didn't bore you. If you've still got any questions, or just want to say "Good story!", click on the "Submit Review" button below -- if you include your e-mail, I will respond. And if you really want to show how much you appreciate this fic, go out and buy the new Jonah Hex series if you're not already, or at least dig into some back-issue bins and give some old Hex books a good home. Thanks for taking this trip with me, and I'll see y'all out on the trail!_


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